


Hour of Deliverance

by cyndrarae



Category: Dark Angel
Genre: Aftermath of Torture, M/M, Post Season/Series 02, Rape Aftermath, Rape/Non-con Elements, Stockholm Syndrome, Top Alec, established Alec/Logan, human apocalypse
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-19
Updated: 2013-06-19
Packaged: 2017-12-15 11:06:27
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 24,187
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/848804
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cyndrarae/pseuds/cyndrarae
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Logan is kidnapped by an organization called the Phoenix, and tortured for information that could stop Max from putting the brakes on the impending human apocalypse. When none of the usual means of extraction work, they bring in someone capable of breaking Logan down in more ways than one. Except maybe this someone isn’t completely immune to Logan himself.<br/>Written for LJ's da-reversebang challenge for an art prompt by the lovely k8bnimble.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

  * For [K8BNimble](https://archiveofourown.org/users/K8BNimble/gifts).



> 1\. This gets dark, please see warnings. No one dies though, and it’s a happy ending, well, as 'happy' as the aftermath of rape and torture could possibly be.  
> 2\. Please note this story in no way condones or apologizes for rape or rapists. What it does deal with is a mild Stockholm Syndrome situation, whether it is real or faked.. is open to reader's interpretation.  
> 3\. POV goes back and forth between the past and the present, you'll figure it out soon enough.  
> 4\. The character Ralph appeared in S02E02 called Bag ‘Em, played by Sarah Jane Morris (she later also played Special Agent EJ Barrett on NCIS)  
> 5\. There is a very, very tiny crossover AU element from another favorite fandom of mine. Let me know what you think if you spot it :) (So turns out nobody spotted it, bleh. Too subtle I guess. Anyway it's the President - young Kevin Tran was a character in Supernatural. Before he died, he was a prophet and before he became a prophet, he was a geeky little kid who just wanted to be the first Asian-American President of USA, le sigh.)  
> 6\. Art prompt found here: http://k8bnimble.livejournal.com/13307.html

**Prologue  
[Twenty-eight days to Impact…] **  
  
It’s after two in the AM when Max finds an opening in the Secret Service security net surrounding the White House.  
  
She isn’t alone.  
  
Ralph, a young X6 who like so many other transgenics sought refuge in Terminal City this past year, accompanies her. Ralph remembers Max as her savior,  _literally_ , one who saved her from White’s firing squad three years ago. Hell, Max is the one who gave Ralph the name Ralph. In recent months, she’s been stepping up and Max has grown to trust her.  
  
Together, they sneak into President Tran’s bedroom where, thankfully, the man is sleeping alone. Explaining stuff to the First Lady at this hour may have been a tad more awkward.  
  
“Jesus!” The leader of the new third world exclaims, and is quickly shushed by a feline black-gloved finger.  
  
“Max?” He has the quick sense to whisper. “What are you doing here?”  
  
“This is important, Mr. President,” is all she says while Ralph checks to make sure none of the agents outside have been alerted.  
  
The thirty-something man sits up in bed, switches on a table lamp and dons his glasses, still frowning at the two transgenics suspiciously.  
  
“I thought we weren’t going to be doing this anymore, Max. I signed the transgenics’ Freedom and Equality Bill back in ‘23. Hell, I updated the fifteenth amendment expressly for this purpose… so you’d stop breaking into my bedroom!”  
  
Ralph nods at Max giving her the all-clear signal before the leader of the transgenics turns back to face him. “I’m here to save your life, Mr. President. And that of pretty much everyone in the homo-sapiens category this side of the solar system.”  
  
“Wh-what do you mean?”  
  
“The comet? Comet Kramer? It’s not as harmless as your Chief of National Security will have you believe.”  
  
“What do you mean?”  
  
“It is carrying with it a deadly neurotoxin called Taripoxin.”  
  
“Taripoxin? Like in the venom found in the Chilean Taripan snake?”  
  
Max hikes an eyebrow, “I forgot you were a geek back in your heyday. Yeah, that’s the one. And you know it’s  _lethal_  to humans.”  
  
“And there’s no antivenom in existence,” the President mutters almost absent-mindedly.  
  
Max bites her lip, “Yeah, we’ll get to that. Listen, this bitch of a comet will be passing right over your heads hemorrhaging this neurotoxin in exactly twenty seven days and…” she looks at her watch, “… nine minutes. The last time this bitch paid Earth a visit, the  _then_  dominant species on the planet, the dinosaurs, dropped dead where they stood. And it’s going to happen again.”  
  
“And how exactly do you know this, Max?”  
  
Naturally, the man is skeptical. Max huffs and looks at her watch again. Of course she knew it wasn’t going to be easy, convincing anyone let alone the President of the United States about this fantastical idea of an actual, honest-to-God extinction level event.  
  
Like the Pulse wasn’t enough. Now this?  
  
“Look we don’t have time for this. Check your private email, the one you shared with me… not now!” she smacks Tran’s hand that tries to reach for his laptop.  
  
“After we leave, a Doctor Sandeman will have sent you all the details you and your people need to know about this. The cliff notes version is this – all transgenics are immune, and the dose isn’t large enough to affect most animals, plants and other organisms. But it is large enough to kill humans within twenty minutes of exposure.”  
  
“Wh-what do we do? Can we stop it?”  
  
“No, this is not a Hollywood movie, Mr. President. We cannot stop the freakin’ comet from coming.”  
  
The man looks stricken beyond belief. At least she has his attention now. She sits back on the bed and gives him some breathing space. “But we  _can_  save everyone.”  
  
He is silent for a second and then suddenly impatient to know what the hell she’s on about.  
  
“This transgenic girl we know,” Max looks away for a second, “apparently she has like perfect DNA, no junk whatsoever. Back when they whipped her up in a test tube, every genetic marker was encoded with valuable information, and… jeez, long story short, in her DNA is the answer to our problem. And my scientist friend, Dr. Sandeman, I told you about him remember?”  
  
“The man who started Manticore, yes…”  
  
“Well, he’s synthesized an antidote that, if infused into everyone’s bloodstream a few days or even a few hours before the comet hits, they’ll be inoculated.”  
  
“Okay, good, so there’s an antidote. But how, pray tell, do we infuse it into all of human population in twenty-eight days? Wait a minute… water? That’s it, isn’t it? You want my help to get it into America’s water supply!”  
  
“Not just America, you have to get this in the hands of every country, everywhere that humans live. And there is no way I can do this alone.” At that, Max opens her bag and takes out a tray of vials with the said antidote, then hands it over to the President.  
  
“Just like that? You don’t want anything in exchange?”  
  
She smiles sadly. “I want seven billion lives to not be lost, Mr. President. That’s what I want. Start mass production immediately and start communicating with your fellow presidents and kings and stuff ASAP.”  
  
The first Asian-American President of the United States rubs his brow worriedly. “In case you didn’t notice, America can no longer tell other countries what to do or not to do, Max. Convincing them will need hard evidence and talks may take weeks, if not months!”  
  
“I have faith in you, oh, fearless leader. I’m sure you’ll figure it out. As for hard evidence, send the files I just emailed you to them. They’ll know what to do.”  
  
“And what about testing this… antidote? They’re going to ask about things like side effects and success rates…”  
  
“Look, do whatever tests you need to, just watch the clock. It’s possible some folks’ freakishly defensive immune systems might reject it. So to be doubly safe, people should use breathing masks, storm cellars, underground bunkers if they can for at least a half hour after the comet enters the Earth’s atmosphere. It’ll take that long for the toxin to disintegrate in our atmosphere and be rendered harmless. But direct exposure in those first few minutes  _will_  mean instant death.”  
  
“What’s the chance this antidote might not work?”  
  
Max sighs, suddenly looking very weary, “One in a million. But that’s still like seven thousand people. And there’s not enough time to find out who’s who.”  
  
President Kevin Tran stands up then and starts to pace, “I’ll get NASA to issue a PSA right away. But we’ll have to keep the severity of this under wraps otherwise this could cause a global panic of monumental proportions!”  
  
“Maybe. But I took a chance coming to you and you’re pretty cool about it. I’d say we give the people the same benefit of the doubt. Besides, panic isn’t why you need to keep this on the DL.”  
  
President stops pacing and gawks at her. “What then?”  
  
“Have you heard of the Familiars, Mr. President?”  
  
The man’s eyes blow wide open. “Let me guess, not an urban legend?”  
  
Ralph snorts but quickly looks away when both Max and the President glare at her.  
  
“Afraid not, Mr. President,” Max continues. “They will try to stop us from inoculating the humans and basically undoing their whole reason for being for the past five thousand years. Guess I might be pissed if I were especially bred to be a psychotic narcissistic bitch too. From this moment on, do not trust  _anyone_  until we clear them for you. Fire your national security advisor immediately – he is one of them. We will tell you who to involve in this mission, nobody else should know. Not even your Chief of Staff, hell not even your wife!”  
  
Tran puts his fists on his hips and sets his feet apart. Even dressed in pajamas that look like they belong in a fifties Eastman color movie, he looks like he means business. “You’re asking me to trust you over everyone else I know?”  
  
Max squints as if she doesn’t understand the question. “Well, yeah.”  
  
The man looks at her exasperatedly. “This better not be a joke of some kind, Guevara.”  
  
Max sighs and rolls her eyes at Ralph, “And here I thought we were starting to bond.”  
  
*****  
***  
*****  
  
_Three AM in the morning: Alec senses something amiss even in his sleep. His eyes shoot open only to find the other side of the bed empty and growing cold steadily. He sighs heavily and rises, relieved because he can sense the presence he seeks not far away from him.  
  
Logan, his partner of six months, stands at a full-length glass window in the living room, staring off into the pitch dark night. Again.  
  
He makes enough noise to make sure Logan knows he’s being approached, then cautiously puts a hand on the nearest shoulder and squeezes. He expects to be shrugged off again, or worse, for Logan to flinch violently and run out of the penthouse altogether, not to return until the next morning. Alec doesn’t think his heart could take that again, genetically engineered or not.  
  
This needs to stop. Before either of them loses their head and says or does something they cannot take back again.  
  
“Think it’s time we talked, buddy.”  
  
Logan doesn’t turn to face him, doesn’t stop staring into the utter stillness of the night. His eyes are red from lack of sleep (which is because he’s been actively avoiding sleep to keep the nightmares at bay). There’s a deep chill in his bones that refuses to go away no matter how hard he hugs himself. His legs tremble, as if poised to collapse at any moment under the weight of his own scarecrow-like body.  
  
He knows he could shirk Alec off again, and his poor boyfriend will back off without a word, even if his face will plainly reflect the agony Logan would be subjecting him to. He knows how unfair it’ll be to Alec, how it has been for the past several days.  
  
No, Alec is right. Logan does need to get this off his chest, if there is to be any hope of having a semblance of normalcy back in his life.  
  
Quietly he nods, _ Yes _.  
  
It is time they talked._  
  
*****  
***  
*****  
  
**[Twenty-five days to impact…]**  
  
Logan walks out of the shower with a towel wrapped around his waist, fingers combing through his wet hair.  
  
A pair of arms casually encircles him from behind. Given the nature of his job and the company he usually keeps, anyone else might react with alarm, maybe squawk a little. But Logan just laughs and sinks back into his boyfriend’s embrace.  
  
“Good morning to you too sweetheart.”  
  
“Mmm,” Alec buries his face in the crook of Logan’s neck. “You smell delicious.”  
  
Logan turns and wraps his own arms around Alec’s neck before pulling him into a passionate kiss. When they pull apart for much needed breath, Logan looks down at Alec’s leather jacket and boots. “Leaving already?”  
  
“Yeah, Max called. Have to escort the shipment to South America today. Gotta get an early start.”  
  
Logan nods. They’ve already shared the formula with every country with the means to manufacture it, but there are others who can’t, not in the time they’ve got left. And then there are other world leaders who didn’t believe in what admittedly sounds like absolute cockamamie, and are basically doing nothing. So Max has taken it upon herself, with the help of US forces deployed in those parts of the world, to spread the antidote as far and wide as she possibly can.  
  
They’re calling it Operation Deliverance.  
  
“I do have about ten minutes to kill,” Alec wiggles an eyebrow, peeling Logan’s towel away and pulling every inch of his body flush against his own.  
  
“Only ten? Sorry, that’s not nearly enough.” He starts to pull away from Alec, only to be pulled right back into the X5’s arms who doesn’t share his amusement as much.  
  
“Wanna bet?” Alec’s voice is laced with unmasked want, and Logan snickers even as sharp tingles run down his spine in response.  
  
“Well, stop talking then and take me already, McDowell…” Logan palms the growing bulge in his lover’s jeans as he speaks, glad to see Alec is indeed already ‘up’ for the job.  
  
Alec growls and that should’ve been warning enough but Logan is still taken by surprise nonetheless when the X5 hoists him up and over his shoulder. Logan laughs as Alec walks over to the king-sized bed and dumps him on it diagonally. Logan expects Alec to climb on top of him right away but is surprised again when Alec walks to the bedside table instead.  
  
“Seriously? Alec after last night, I don’t think we need it.”  
  
“Shut your mouth,” Alec chides before fishing out what he’s looking for and coming over to lie besides Logan. “You know I’ve never taken you dry and I never ever intend to,” he says, rolling Logan over onto his stomach. If that’s your kink baby, you better take it someplace else.”  
  
“Really?”  
  
“No, not really! Smart-ass.”  
  
Alec stuffs a couple of pillows under Logan’s stomach to prop him up and pulls his long legs apart. Then he straddles his lover, his own legs tangling with Logan’s to hold them in place.  
  
Logan knows what’s coming next, what Alec wants, and can’t help but tremble with anticipation. “Alec…”  
  
“Shh, you know I’m dying to,” Alec runs a finger down the exposed crack, tickling the little blinking orifice. “But only if you’re up for it?”  
  
He’s asking for permission, as always, and Logan can’t help but smile. “Yes,” he whispers back, even as he buries his intensely blushing face in his pillow.  
  
His hips jerk helplessly as an avid tongue licks his orifice repeatedly, gently, teasingly, like he has all the time in the world. This is so… so intimate, so dirty, so fucking hot. Logan feels so vulnerable yet incredibly turned on at the same time, and he doesn’t know what to do with himself. Alec works him open with hot, probing licks until Logan is moaning and desperately writhing and starting to drip pre-cum on the pillow underneath.  
  
“Alec,” he begs, fingers twisting around the soft white sheets. “I can’t hold on any longer…”  
  
“Then don’t Lo’, just let go…”  
  
The human closes his eyes, unable to resist the lure but he has something better in mind. “No, I want to come with you inside me.”  
  
“Okay, buddy. Hold on…”  
  
Alec moves away and Logan feels the cool air of the penthouse glide against his lavishly moistened hole, making him tremble anew. He groans louder when a lubricated finger is inserted into his opening. “Come on, man…”  
  
“Shh, a few seconds more…” Alec insists on stretching him very carefully, first with one then two digits, scissoring his insides while he kisses the sweat-soaked back and neck of his very insistent and incredibly turned on lover.  
  
“I thought you only had ten minutes, you bastard…” Logan whines and Alec laughs, biting the side of his neck to leave a mark that’ll last the three days he’ll be away from home.  
  
Logan lifts his hips to thrust back into the fingers even as he humps the pillow underneath him frantically. He moans his loudest when finally, finally he hears a zipper being pulled down, and Alec’s erection pokes against his eager orifice.  
  
“Ah, God, you’re still so snug, so good, so hot…” Alec gasps, getting closer himself, telling Logan how well he’s doing, how great he feels around his cock, how much he loves to be inside Logan.  
  
Logan spreads his legs as far as they can go and lifts up to take in more and more of Alec until his lover is buried to the hilt within him.  
  
“Move, Alec, please oh please…”  
  
Alec drags his thick cock out of Logan then swiftly drives back in, brushing up against his sweet spot until Logan is arching his back and begging for more. The rhythm is erratic to begin with then Alec hits his stride, thrusting in and out with frightening precision that makes Logan throw his head back and moan incessantly. Before he knows it, Alec is pulling him up by the hips so Logan is on his knees and his lover is pounding into him with all the passion of a genetically engineered wild feral.  
  
“Alec, ah… I’m gonna… oh wow…”  
  
Alec wraps one hand around Logan’s cock, urging him on with a couple of strokes and that is all it takes to unravel Logan completely. “Come for me, Lo’. Come now.”  
  
Logan closes his eyes and bucks hard against Alec behind him, fingers ripping through the bed sheet as his climax explodes out of him. He whites out for a bit, body wrecked and trembling, ready to collapse into a messy heap. Alec takes another two minutes, working his own eager cock in and out until he comes with a loud guttural moan, spilling his seed inside Logan in generous spurts. He collapses right on top of his lover until Logan whines about being crushed under his ginormous frame. With effort he drags himself to lie beside Logan, who immediately curls up into his chest.  
  
“What time is it?”  
  
Logan glances at a digital clock behind Alec, “Ten after seven.”  
  
Alec groans again. “I have to go.”  
  
“Okay,” Logan can’t help the forlornly tone in his voice.  
  
Alec looks down at his boyfriend. “Hey,” he says, tapping Logan on his chin. “Three days at most, buddy. I’ll be back before you know it.”  
  
They kiss each other then, and when they pull apart, it seems like there is something Alec wants to say to Logan, but apparently decides against it. Logan wants to chuckle because he knows exactly what his boyfriend had started to say. And he doesn’t mind that they’re taking it slow, that Alec is probably just waiting for the right moment.  
  
He watches Alec rise to go to the bathroom and return with a warmed washcloth that he uses to gently clean Logan. He throws the pillow stained with Logan’s cum into a laundry basket twelve feet away; then turns to fix his own clothes and hair. Logan starts to rise from the bed too but Alec pushes him back down.  
  
“Hey, how about you go back to sleep, you’ve been working way too hard this week.”  
  
“I’m fine. Let me at least see you to the door…”  
  
“Shh,” Alec pulls the covers up over Logan, and lowers his face to kiss him. “Go to sleep, buddy. Be back before you know it.”  
  
“Good luck,” Logan whispers, then closes his eyes and lets the exhaustion take over at last. He doesn’t hear Alec leave, and doesn’t know how long he’s been asleep before a soft thudding sound stirs him awake.  
  
He opens his eyes groggily, wondering what the time is. He hears muted movement behind him again.  _Maybe it’s Alec_.  
  
“Did you forget something?” he calls out.  
  
In hindsight, it’s the most gullible he’s ever been. Before he can process what’s happening, men in black gear suddenly descend on him, holding him down on the bed while one of them injects something into him. Struggling is futile. Whatever they give him acts fast and paralyzes his limbs immediately. His senses start to wither away next, plunging him into pitch black within seconds.  
  
_Sedative_ , he thinks vaguely as he starts to drift away. He can feel his body being jostled by his attackers, rolled and wrapped in a blanket, then lifted onto a gurney with perfect efficiency.  
  
There’s nothing he can do. He doesn’t know who these people are and why they’re doing this to him – but if they’re sedating him instead of putting a bullet in his head, there’s a good chance he’d be alive, at least for a while, and hopefully long enough for Alec and Max to come find him.  
  
_Alec!_  
  
And that’s his last thought just before blacking out completely. He hopes and prays (even though he doesn’t actually believe in any God) that his lover managed to get away safely.  
  
***  
  
He wakes up tied to a chair in the dark.  
  
His head hurts as he tries to shrug off the effects of the sedative – which reminds him of how he was drugged and kidnapped out of his penthouse this morning.  
  
Was it this morning? He couldn’t be sure. He looks down and is relieved to see at least they clothed him after they found him naked in bed. But then he frowns. He seems to be wearing grey t-shirt and grey camouflage pants, the exact kind Max was wearing when she escaped from Manticore three years ago.  
  
“Not possible…” he whispers, almost surprised to hear his own voice echo back to him.  
  
He squints against the bright strobe light focused right on him in an otherwise dark room. His vision is extremely weak without his glasses, which the bastards probably decided to forget on purpose, and the darkness isn’t helping either. His hands are tied behind the chair he’s seated in, and his ankles are also roped against the legs of the chair.  
  
He tries to stay calm, obviously. No point losing it right away.  
  
He leans back in the chair, resting his aching back. Alec is going to find him; all he has to do is wait these bastards out. Then another thought occurs to him – what if this really is a Manticore thing? What if he’s been kidnapped as a way to get to the transgenics?  
  
Immediately the calm vanishes. He doesn’t want Alec to come for him after all.  
  
Drops of sweat trickle down the back of his neck and into his t-shirt. Suddenly the lights come back on and his worst fears are realized. If his memory serves him well, this place looks eerily similar to some old photographs he once found of the facility in the Wisconsin mountains.  
  
But Manticore was dismantled? Wasn’t it?  
  
“Manticore really is dead, Mr. Cale,” a female voice echoes through the high ceilinged room, startling him. “You and your troublemaker lady friend, Max, saw to that.”  
  
A door opens to the left of him, revealing the silhouette of a woman in a form-fitting mid-length dress, and six-inch stilettos. The heels click ominously as she strides in, emerging from the shadows into the light where Logan can see her.  
  
To say that he is stunned would be a gross understatement. “Ralph?”  
  
She walks in slowly, her hands crossed behind her back. Logan blinks against the strobe light repeatedly just to make sure his weak eyes aren’t deceiving him. The astonishment must be evident on his face because Ralph stops a few feet away from him and crosses her arms in front of her instead.  
  
“This isn’t Manticore anymore, Logan. We are what was left behind in the ashes of Manticore after Max burned it all down. Think. Think hard, Logan. You know us, you’ve heard about us.”  
  
Flashbacks, photographic images, memories of an encrypted transmission he intercepted many, many months ago bubble to the surface. A renegade bunch of Manticore scientists who couldn’t find employment anywhere else because the DoD blacklisted them. Not only that, they were being systematically hunted down by the NSA, along with the transgenics of course. The last two X series to come down the assembly line were designed to be particularly co-dependent on the mothership, so to speak. They simply could not adjust to life outside Manticore.  
  
“We just want things to go back to the way they were. We just want our home back.” Ralph provided the last clue, completing the picture in Logan’s mind. “Is that too much to ask?”  
  
He exhales, partly in relief that comes with  _knowing_ , partly in disgust. “Phoenix.”  
  
“Bingo.”  
  
“We saved your life,” he reminds her softly, feeling a strong sting of betrayal on behalf of both Max and himself, because he was the one who got Ralph and her friends safely across the border into Canada. This is how she returns the favor?  
  
“Which would explain why you and Max aren’t dead yet, wouldn’t it.” She actually says it like she expects him to be thankful.  
  
“So all this time, living in Terminal City… you were spying on us? Why? What do you want from us?”  
  
Ralph moves closer until she is towering over him. “It’s so sweet, you counting yourself in the transgenic collective.” She smirks, which makes Logan want to bitch slap her.  
  
“If you’re worried about your peeps back in TC, please don’t. It is  _you_  we wanted, and now we have you.”  
  
“What do you want from me?”  
  
She walks around him until she’s no longer in his line of sight, which makes Logan nervous. “Before you rush to judge, remember what you told me six months ago? Necessity is the mother of enterprise?”  
  
“What did you do, Ralph?”  
  
She comes back around to face him. “We made a teensy little deal with the Conclave to share power in the post-apocalyptic world, that’s all. After the comet comes and kills off all, or at least most of the Ordinaries, we get to rule the world alongside the Familiars.”  
  
“WHAT?” Logan cannot believe what he’s just heard. For one he can’t believe the Familiars actually partnered with transgenics against humans. And two, Ralph seems to be making the assumption that Operation Deliverance will fail. “You really think they will ever see you transgenics as equals?”  
  
She bristles visibly. “That’s not your problem, Logan. Right now, your only problem is whether you get to live another day. All you have to do is give us the antidote to the antidote.”  
  
“The what now?”  
  
“The thing that renders Max’s antidote useless! We know you know about it, Logan. Where is it?”  
  
Logan tries to laugh, but it comes out a strangled gasp more than anything. “I don’t know who’s fed you with these fabrications, Ralph. But there is…”  
  
A feminine hand suddenly shoots out and grabs his jugular with such brute strength he immediately starts to choke. “Trust me, Logan, you do not have the time for these games. We know it exists. I  _heard_  you talk about it with my own ears!”  
  
Logan stays silent, his jaw clenched tight with both anger and trepidation.  
  
Ralph smiles, and lets his throat go. “I’ve always liked you, Logan. You’ve been nice to me. But the next few days are not going to be easy if you don’t cooperate.”  
  
Logan still doesn’t respond. Ralph walks away then and the lights go out with her, casting the room back into pitch darkness; darkness that he’s glad for, for a change… because they hide the genuine fear that is starting to show on his face.  
  
He tells himself it’s going to be okay. He just needs to hold on for a few days, until Alec and Max come back from San Diego and find him missing. He can hang on until then. He can do it. He’ll be fine.  
  
He is wrong.  
  
*****  
***  
*****  
  
_Logan scratches at his wrists absently, again.  
  
“Please stop,” Alec says, startling Logan out of his thoughts.  
  
At first he doesn’t understand what Alec is asking him to ‘stop’. Slowly, Alec gets up from his chair and joins Logan on the couch. “It’s just the healing process. You keep scratching you’ll open your wounds again.”  
  
He picks an ointment of soothing gel from the coffee table and then gently takes Logan’s wrists in his hands. Logan watches blankly as his boyfriend applies the healing gel to the skin circling his wrists, massaging it in gently until the irritation goes away.  
  
“How’re your feet?” Alec asks him, and Logan can only meekly nod.  
  
Alec kneels before him on the carpeted floor and repeats the process with his ankles where there are more shackle burns that’d bled and gotten infected during his time in… captivity.  
  
“I’m sorry, Logan. We shouldn’t have let our guards down around Ralph as quickly as we did,” Alec whispers ruefully, “I should have seen it. She was so eager to get into the command center from the beginning. I-I thought she had a crush on you or something, I mean she was just a kid! So I… I let her stay…”  
  
Logan smiles sadly, still not looking at Alec. He never does look at Alec anymore, which pains the transgenic to no end. “It’s not your fault. I didn’t see it either. None of us did.”  
  
Logan thinks back to the day Alec and Max were forcing him to try the antidote beta test again. How Logan had sighed in exasperation. _  
  
“Come on! You know Sandeman said it won’t work on me. ‘Antidote to the antidote’ and all that, remember?”  
  
_Alec remembers that day vividly. “Ralph was right there hanging in the background, wasn’t she?”  
  
“Uh-huh.”  
  
“So Phoenix knew you had what they wanted in… in you.”  
  
Logan nods again.  
  
Alec loses himself in thought for a moment, then turns back to Logan frowning. “And you’re _ sure _the antidote didn’t work for you?”  
  
“I’m sure.”  
  
A whole twelve seconds of silence later, Alec can’t help but ask. “Then how did you survive, Logan?”  
  
Logan looks at Alec at last, briefly, before looking away again.  
  
“We’ll get to that.” _  
  
*****  
***  
*****  
  
**[Twenty-four days to impact…]**  
  
Because of the time-bound urgency of the issue, Phoenix doesn’t waste any time getting right down to business. The first thing they do is come in and take a couple vials of Logan’s blood.  
  
Tied to the chair as he is, he’s unable to fight and it makes Logan extremely nervous – not knowing what his blood is about to give away. He still can’t believe how quickly things have gotten out of hand, hell he’s still processing it all. He’s just a regular guy for God’s sake, and all he ever wanted to do was help. He can’t be the reason Max fails to save all of freaking mankind, he just can’t.  
  
The first two days, they leave Logan alone, waiting for their scientists to do their magic or whatever. Except, Logan Cale’s blood panel is like a Jackson Pollock (or a Joshua number fifty four) on steroids – it is an unrecognizable mishmash of hundreds of antigens and antibodies from multiple transfusions he’s had from different classes of transgenics over the last four years. It is such a mess that it would take their doctors months to identify the specific element they’re looking for.  
  
Unless someone gives them a hint about where to start, or exactly what to look for. That’s when they return to his holding cell.  
  
For the next two days, Ralph tries her best to reason with him. She talks to him,  _at_  him, about a world cleansed of all human crimes and anarchies and petty vices, a new world order in which he would have immense power. After all, he’s practically family with all that transgenic blood running in his veins anyway, right?  
  
Logan hears her out patiently, hell, even encourages the completely batshit arguments spewing out of her traitorous mouth that try to rationalize the genocide of seven billion people on the planet.  
  
“Six billion, actually,” Ralph corrects him. “There are nearly a billion Familiars and mutants across the planet.”  
  
Logan rolls his eyes angrily. “How can you expect me to accept the killing of even one person, Ralph, even one?”  
  
He tries to patiently explain to her how ridiculous and asinine all of Ralph’s arguments are too. For one, if you suddenly remove six billion people off the face of the planet, the world economy will completely collapse, so it will be utter anarchy anyway.  
  
It goes on and on between the two of them, until they start to lose patience. And by ‘they’, Ralph probably means the Familiars. The Phoenix is merely a contractor for hire working towards a deadline. Twenty four days to be exact.  
  
One fine morning, Ralph gets it. “You’re stalling.”  
  
Logan looks up at her, his face a blank slate, utterly serene in its unspoken mockery of her and her misguided organization.  
  
She stands up to leave, “I cannot protect you anymore, Logan.”  
  
And then she’s gone. Five minutes later, she comes back in with someone Logan is sure he does not want to know any better. “This is General Barton. He once made a living torturing your government’s prisoners of war in a little place called Guantanamo Bay.”  
  
The man is six feet six and looks about just as wide. He wears a plain black suit with black dress shoes that shine almost as bright as his golden bald head. He looks down at Logan and there is a menacing look in his eyes even when the rest of his face is calm as a stone sculpture. Logan trembles and braces himself for what is to come.  
  
Day five, Barton starts with breaking Logan’s fingers.  
  
“Where is it?”  
  
He moves on to carving Logan’s chest and back with a scalpel.  
  
“ _What_  is it? This antidote to the antidote?”  
  
Then he presses burning cigarette ends into Logan’s thighs.  
  
“How did you get it? Who gave it to you? Answer me, damn you. For your own sake, talk to me!”  
  
The torture continues for two days, from daybreak to dusk or until Logan loses consciousness, whichever comes first.  
  
Day six: They try waterboarding him. Apparently Barton was the resident expert back at Gitmo in this particular technique, and he’s delighted to be able to practice his skills once again. The fact that it doesn’t work doesn’t deter him from continuing to try it for a couple of days. Until one session that goes bit too far and they have to resuscitate Logan back to life. Ralph is the one that steps in and pulls rank, reminding Barton they still need Logan alive, not dead.  
  
So they try sleep deprivation and starving instead. For four days and four nights, they keep him locked up inside his holding cell. No food or water, six white strobe lights trained on him day and night, and what sounds like a thousand sirens blaring into the cell every time he so much as blinks.  
  
“You think this will be over once the comet comes and goes, don’t you, big guy? Well, let me tell you – you’re wrong,” he hears Barton whispering in his ear, or at least, he thinks he hears it. It could just be another hallucination.  
  
In the next instant, the voice changes from that of Barton to Ralph’s. “Or maybe you’re hoping your big strong X5 lover will come for you, huh? Newsflash, sweetheart: No one’s coming for you, because no one’s looking for you. No one wants you back. They’re glad to be rid of you.”  
  
Logan fights against the hallucinations, or not, with all his might. He screams, curses, swats the empty air around him, but the words echo inside his head and there is no getting rid of them without maybe scratching his brains out.  
  
With every passing hour, Logan is acutely conscious of his sanity slipping bit by bit. He squirms under the constant heat of the lights and swallows repeatedly to soothe his parched throat, to no avail. And when at the end of day twelve, they finally do let him rest… even asleep his mind remembers it to be the most terrifying six hours of his life, because he is scared to death of what he might have let slip to have earned this award.  
  
When he wakes up, to his great relief (and their great frustration), they’re still asking him the same questions.  
  
“Take pity on yourself, Mr. Cale,” Barton hisses before pulling him out of his makeshift bed, basically a mattress on the floor in the corner of his holding cell, and shoving his weak, unresisting body back into the interrogation chair.  
  
The grey t-shirt and camouflage pants they dressed him in twelve days ago, are now reduced to rags, bloodied and soiled in his own bodily fluids, not to mention sliced up and burnt in places. They hang loosely off his listless frame, indicative that Logan has lost a bunch of weight as well.  
  
And yet something feels different today. Last night, he couldn’t even drag himself to the first cup of water he’d been given in more than ninety-six hours. And yet this morning, he finds he can flex his hands and shins, might even be able to walk if he was allowed to.  
  
Logan looks down at his chest and thighs – at the spots where the skin was charred until just yesterday, or what he remembers to be yesterday. Two fingers in each hand are still in splints, and the others are stiff but mostly healed. With the exception of his wrists and ankles where the rope and/or shackle burns seem to have become nearly permanent, the rest of his body is… healing. And he’s not sure why or how.  
  
“They’re called nanomites.” Ralph startles him, responding to his unvoiced query as if reading his mind. “Manticore developed it, to accelerate the healing process.”  
  
“I’d say thanks but something tells me this wasn’t done for my benefit.”  
  
She smirks. “You’d be right.”  
  
Logan tries not to let the tremors racking his spine show. There’s only one reason he can think of… so they can keep working him over again and again.  
  
But Logan has no idea how much worse things are about to get.  
  
Day thirteen: They bring in the snake.  
  
“Our friends at the Conclave sent us this lovely gift today,” Ralph says, holding a flat hand-woven basket made from bamboo, with the hissing reptile inside.  
  
“Apparently they call this one, ‘Treeda’. Don’t worry. Compared to the Chilean Taripan, the one they use for their Initiations… this one’s just a mild-mannered cousin. I guess after learning how beautifully you reacted to the sleep deprivation, they thought you’d enjoy this baby even more.”  
  
Logan has never been a fan of creepy crawlies. His instinct is to clamber back and away from the snake as far as he can go, except he’s tied to the damn chair again. A muted whimper escapes his throat, but that’s the closest he allows himself to come to showing weakness. That and well, the fact that he chooses to close his eyes tight, instead.  
  
The snake bite itself isn’t painful. But the venom that enters his bloodstream  _burns_. It’s like someone poured acid into his veins and then set them on fire. And this time Logan doesn’t even try to stop himself from screaming.  
  
Worse, the venom acts like a painful hallucinogen, and Logan struggles against it all night. Blabbering away, knowing he is blabbering but unable to stop and once again extremely terrified of what he might give away.  
  
But on the morning of day fourteen when he finally regains consciousness – nothing has changed. Nothing at all.  
  
Logan is disappointed. At the very least, he was hoping to be dead, and for all of this to be over.  
  
He’s given up hope that Max and Alec will ever find him. If they could, they would have by now.  
  
_They’re not coming because they’re not looking for you, Logan._  
  
Logan tosses and turns in his bed, or at least he tries to with his hands and feet shackled to the floor. Thoughts of suicide surface with vehemence, but something… maybe the idea of disappointing his lover and friends… is enough to keep them at bay. Guess he hasn’t given up hope after all.  
  
_Even if they’re not looking for you…_  
  
Logan looks up at the tiny hole in the ceiling which serves as the only window in this prison of his, and tries to decipher the time of day. Looks like twilight, probably a little after seven PM.  
  
He is lying on his flimsy floor mattress in one corner of his cell. The dreaded interrogation chair and table, with another pair of shackles lie not too far away, with a small toilet bowl in the far corner. No privacy, not for prisoners of war.  
  
And this is indeed war.  
  
The door opens, and Logan squints against the bright yellow light streaming in to try and identify who’s coming in next to torture him.  
  
“Darn, it’s you. I was hoping it’d be Barton.” He drawls, when Ralph pulls a chair to sit down next to him. She crosses her legs and leans forward, studying him intently.  
  
“I’m impressed, didn’t think you’d last the night.”  
  
“Yeah,” he sighs, biting back the ‘me neither’ riding the tip of his tongue. “Obviously your snake’s a mudblood.”  
  
Ralph throws him a confused look and Logan can’t help but smirk. Harry Potter wasn’t part of the prescribed reading list at Manticore, clearly.  
  
“Your transgenic blood addiction over the years has made you resilient,” she speculates, ignoring the joke she doesn’t get.  
  
Logan smiles, very aware that she’s pointing out a problem, something her scientists of questionable competence continue to be baffled by, not something they are impressed by.  
  
“Let me guess, your guys still don’t know what’s going on with my blood, do they?”  
  
Ralph clenches her jaw. “You’re right. They’ve been studying your blood now for thirteen days, but are nowhere close to identifying, let alone extracting the antidote to the antidote. They have absolutely no idea what to look for. If they did, I wouldn’t be putting you through so much pain now, would I.”  
  
And that confession makes Logan smirk even more. Ralph stands up all of a sudden. “For the record, I did not want to do this Logan, but you have left me no choice.”  
  
Logan blinks, no longer feeling as secure as he did a second ago, no matter how fleeting a feeling it may have been. “Do what?”  
  
“Hurt my own kind,” Ralph answers oh so self-righteously.  
  
Logan wants to snort; he imagines using the quoty fingers to recount this conversation to Max someday, if he ever gets the chance to, that is.  
  
“Bring him in!” Ralph calls out into her comm-link.  
  
Moments later, two men drag a third one into the room, and drop him to the floor right in front of Logan. Logan sits up on his bed, and tries to decipher the blurry shape hunched over himself (or is it herself?) with his weakened eyes. It takes him a while but once he does, his eyes go wide with absolute dismay and abject horror.  
  
*****  
***  
*****


	2. Chapter 2

_Logan suddenly unfolds himself from his little corner on the couch and starts to pace the length of the living room. Alec stands up too, but he knows better than to approach Logan in this state.  
  
“Talk to me?” he murmurs quietly.  
  
Logan hugs himself and shakes his head, “No, enough, no more.”  
  
“Okay, okay, no more. Come here, Logan… come here.”  
  
Alec waits, his arms outstretched, for his soft pleas to register with Logan. It takes a while before Logan stops pacing and looks at Alec like he’s looking at a stranger. Another few seconds pass before his shoulders visibly drop and Logan walks into the inviting arms, allowing Alec to hold him close to himself.  
  
The X5 closes his eyes and wills his tears not to fall. He rocks Logan gently from side to side, telling him it’s okay and that they don’t need to talk about it anymore, considering he already has a pretty good idea of what follows next.  
  
Alec runs a hand through the back of Logan’s hair and notices the greasiness. He’s been wearing the same clothes for four days too, and is frankly starting to get a little ripe.  
  
“Hey, how about I run you a bath?”  
  
Logan stiffens in his arms and Alec sighs, expecting Logan to refuse and stalk off in anger or repulsion or whatever else might be going through his head right now. But he’s surprised when a moment later Logan bites his lip and nods his head.  
  
Minutes later, Logan comes into the bathroom wrapped in a green bath robe, and looks around. The bathroom is dark with all lights switched off, but the window blinds are up, and there are at least two dozen candles lit all over the place.  
  
Logan rolls his eyes, “Really?”  
  
Alec kneels beside the tub to check the water and shrugs a little sheepishly, starting to second-guess his impulsive decision to do something special and… out of character. And then he blurts the first thing that comes to mind, immediately regretting that as well.  
  
“Max used to do this for you…”  
  
His insecurities about Logan’s last love affair never quite went away but this is so not the time to bring them up. Alec winces, and braces himself for the blowback that is surely to follow.  
  
Instead, Logan slowly walks up to him, drops his bathrobe to the floor beside Alec and silently climbs into the tub. He pulls his knees up to his chest and adjusts his glasses before looking up at Alec.  
  
“Thank you,” Logan says, smiling ever so hesitantly.  
  
Alec lets out a big sigh of relief and settles back on his haunches. “You’re very welcome.”  
  
“Although, you know…” Logan says, picking up a candle that’s set too close to the tub’s edge and moving it to a safer spot. “Max is a girl, so she’s really doing these things for herself, not the guy.”  
  
Alec squints, “Huh. I should’ve thought of that.”  
  
“Can’t believe she’s sharing her bedroom tricks with  _you_ , of all people. When the hell did you get so pally with her?”  
  
“Well, she didn’t exactly share willingly…”  
  
Logan stares at him blandly.  
  
“She was talking to OC. I was eavesdropping… this is a long, long time back. Not important, really. How’s the water?”  
  
Logan snorts, which then turns into a full-body chuckle and then Alec is joining in and they’re laughing together. For a few precious moments, it’s like the last few weeks never happened at all. Like Logan is still Logan and not this broken shell of a person they found in the rubble of the aftermath.  
  
Alec gently runs the wash cloth down Logan’s back, careful not to bother the still healing cuts and bruises, kissing clear skin whenever he can. They haven’t been intimate since Logan got back. He doesn’t know how far he can take this today either.  
  
When his fingers dip into Logan’s navel, that’s when the other man tenses up. “Alec…”  
  
“Don’t worry,” Alec assures him kindly and takes his hands out of the water. He rises and pushes the said hands, wet as they are, into his jeans pockets. “Um, take your time. But, don’t prune yourself out, okay? I, uh, yeah…”  
  
He clears his throat, as if the action might also clear the lustful haze building up in his head and other parts of his anatomy. Then sighs and quickly exits the bathroom.  
  
Logan watches him leave, knowing exactly what must have gone through Alec’s mind, how rejected he must have felt. He tries not to scream in frustration, or bang his head into the porcelain behind him. He lowers his head into his lap, and tries not to think about the night it started.  
  
The night he started to break. _  
  
*****  
***  
*****  
  
**[Twelve days to impact…]**  
  
Logan looks at the man seated before him on the floor in horror.  
  
“Alec?”  
  
The transgenic looks like he’s been severely worked over by Barton and his regiment of Phoenix transgenics. Rivulets of blood are caked on both sides of his face starting from his temples, disappearing into his jacket collar. His usual black jeans are stained in dirt, as is the black t-shirt under his grey leather jacket.  
  
For the first time in all his life, Logan is not happy to see Alec.  
  
The X5 rests on his haunches and looks up through lidded eyes, smirking like the smart aleck he is, “Hey there.”  
  
Logan would have smiled back, if he could, but he’s experiencing what he can only describe as the beginnings of a panic attack.  
  
Ralph grabs the injured X5 by the back of his hair and pulls his head backwards to make him look at her. Then she lowers her face to him as if about to kiss him. Logan feels his hackles rising, which, oddly enough, helps abate his hyperventilation.  
  
“You are welcome,” she hisses into Alec’s face, then roughly shoves his head forward.  
  
“I’ll let the two of you catch up,” she says as she starts for the door with the rest of her henchmen. “Hopefully, Logan, next time when I come to see you, you will feel like returning the favor?”  
  
The door closes behind them, and the locks slide back into place. Logan slides to the floor beside his mattress but that’s about as close to Alec as he can get given the chains holding his wrists and ankles.  
  
Alec, who was until a second ago, hunched over himself like a wounded animal, suddenly straightens up and climbs up to his feet, though not as gracefully as he would if he weren’t injured.  
  
“What, no hug?” he smirks at Logan, like he just won the Powerball or something.  
  
Logan shakes his head. “What are you doing here?”  
  
“What the hell do you think, moron?”  
  
Alec wobbles over to him, and yanks at the chains holding Logan in place. With a swift jerk he breaks them apart, freeing Logan, and pulls him up to his feet. They stare at each other for a few seconds, before Logan practically throws himself onto Alec.  
  
“You shouldn’t have…” he whispers, clinging to Alec’s shoulders for another few seconds before letting him go.  
  
“Like I had a choice. God, look at you, baby, look what they’ve done to you.”  
  
Logan wants to fall into his lover’s arms again and wail his heart out, but instead he takes a step back and waves it off. “Since when do you call me ‘baby’? Quit it, it’s not so bad.”  
  
Alec puts his hands up in placation and backs off too. He is limping, Logan notices, which makes him all the more miserable. Alec tries the heavy metal door that is keeping them inside what looks like a hospital room.  
  
“God, I hated this place,” he grumbles.  
  
“Do you know where we are?”  
  
“Where else? The one and only – the original Manticore facility, up in the Wisconsin mountains.”  
  
Logan frowns, “But didn’t Max burn this place down?”  
  
“Not completely. The west wing is still standing. Looks like Phoenix managed to salvage a couple of floors and some of Manticore’s old equipment – whatever was not hauled away by the DoD, that is.”  
  
“So… nothing underground?”  
  
“Nope, why’d you ask?”  
  
“No reason,” Logan shrugs, watching Alec as he finally gives up trying to find a way out and comes back to sit beside Logan on the bed.  
  
“This room…” the transgenic looks around, swallowing hard. “It’s the old psy-ops unit. This is where they brought me for reconditioning after…”  
  
_After Rachel Berrisford_.  
  
Logan nods, he doesn’t need Alec to say it out loud to know how agonizing those memories still must be for him. “I’m sorry, Alec.”  
  
“Why, it’s not your fault.”  
  
Logan looks up when Alec puts a finger under his chin and makes him turn to face him. “I don’t regret a second I spend with you, Logan. Even if it’s in here. I love you.”  
  
Logan blinks; his mouth falls open in complete astonishment. Alec suddenly backtracks, letting out a nervous little chuckle. “I-I’m sorry. I have the worst timing in the world.”  
  
“N-No, I… it’s…” Logan doesn’t know what to say. A part of him is thrilled to finally hear those words he’s been hoping for ever since they started dating. And yet, somehow, it doesn’t seem… right. Maybe it’s the gravity of their current situation weighing heavily on his mind. And now he feels even guiltier for being unable to reciprocate in kind.  
  
“Alec, I…”  
  
“You don’t have to say anything. I can wait until we get out of here.”  
  
Logan sighs; grateful for the ‘out’. He takes Alec’s hand in both of his, and together they sit like that, side by side, relishing these precious few moments of privacy.  
  
“Please tell me you have a plan to get us out, Alec.”  
  
“Uh, not exactly…”  
  
“What? You came without backup?!?”  
  
“Everyone’s a little busy outside with the comet stuff, in case you forgot. The Familiars keep attacking and trying to destroy every shipment they can find. Delivery to the APAC region is running way behind schedule. There are way too many of them in the system in DC and I’d told Max it was a mistake involving those damn politicians but does she listen? No!”  
  
That stings, a little, but Alec was right. There are much, much bigger issues Max needs to focus on right now. What’s a little torture between friends when six billion lives hang in the fucking balance? Logan tries to push the bitterness away and focus on the big picture himself. What would he have done if he were in Max or Alec’s place?  
  
“You should’ve stayed and helped her, Alec.”  
  
“Shut up. I would have followed you to hell and back,” Alec responds forcefully, raising a hand to hold Logan’s face.  
  
Logan flinches, only to remember his face doesn’t hurt as much as it had the last time he was conscious, thanks to the nanomites.  
  
“Sorry, it’s just been crazy these past few days,” he mumbles as a lame explanation.  
  
“What do they want anyway?”  
  
“What do you think,” is all he says.  
  
“You didn’t say anything, did you?”  
  
Logan glares at him.  
  
“Of course not, what I meant to ask is… how much do they know?”  
  
“I don’t know. They just keep drawing more of my blood. Every morning I wake up, that is if they let me sleep at all, wondering if today’s the day they will find it. Guessing they don’t have access to any old Manticore databases from four years ago.”  
  
“Uh, right, because all of that went up in smoke four years ago.”  
  
Logan looks up at him. “How did you find me anyway? Or should I say how did they find you?”  
  
Alec winces. “I was with Detective Sung to see if he heard from you when they grabbed me. I’m kind of glad they did, I let them, knowing they’d bring me to you.”  
  
Logan frowns at him. “Please tell me at least you left some clue for Max or Joshua to follow your tracks?”  
  
Alec winces again, this time in embarrassment.  
  
Logan sighs in exasperation. “McDowell…”  
  
“Well, forgive me for wanting to find you,  _Cale_. My fault – I should’ve just left you to be tortured to death by these fucking Familiar wannabes.”  
  
“Thanks, but now they’ll torture you too, Alec,” Logan whispers painfully.  
  
“Don’t worry, they can’t make me talk,” Alec says coldly.  
  
“That’s not what I meant and you know it! Besides, it’s not the torture I’m worried about,” Logan sighs.  
  
Alec visibly shivers then tries to hide it behind a smile that is a little too… dead around the edges. “Ah, you mean the old re-indoctrination routine? Yeah, that’s very likely.”  
  
It’s so painfully obvious that Alec is clearly afraid. Logan pulls him closer then, incapable of leaving his lover to suffer alone. He pulls Alec’s face up and closes his mouth over his.  
  
Alec’s instinctive reaction is to freeze, something Logan never expected but he lets it pass. And then a moment later, he melts, kissing Logan back for all he’s worth. Soon he’s surging forward to encompass Logan fully into his arms.  
  
“God, I was so worried about you,” he whispers roughly.  
  
The force behind those words is evident in his actions because Logan can’t remember Alec ever kissing and holding him as roughly as he does right now. He goes with the flow though, desperate for this much-craved contact after the torturous few days he’s just had. Every part of his body aches in one way or another, but he ignores it all. His lover of six months sort of smells different too, but that too he ignores, chalking it up to the fact that after five days in captivity he must be stinking to high heaven himself.  
  
“Logan,” Alec’s voice is heavy and strangely ominous when he whispers, “I need you, right now.”  
  
“Alec…” but Logan doesn’t know what he’s trying to say. It’s like his lover suddenly grows heavy, leaning on him, pushing him down to lie back on the mattress.  
  
Cold hands creep up under his ragged t-shirt to reach warm skin still bruised, broken, or tender in places, and they’re not being too gentle. Logan moans against Alec’s lips as the transgenic tongue continues to ravish his mouth, swallowing whatever protests he tries to lodge against this… whatever this is.  
  
Suddenly, Alec pulls out of the kiss and starts to turn Logan over.  
  
“No, Alec now’s not a good…”  
  
“Shh, we need this… come on, baby…”  
  
Logan whimpers again as his pants are pulled down to his ankles and his legs are spread and pinned down by the X5’s own body weight. Alec’s hands find purchase around his bare buttocks, pulling them apart none too patiently. Before he knows it, Alec is working a dry finger into the tight orifice.  
  
Logan cries out softly, the pain so alien because he hasn’t felt it in the longest time. “Slow down, Alec…”  
  
But Alec isn’t listening. He jabs in a second finger, and then soon after Logan hears a zipper being pulled down behind him.  
  
“Alec, wait, please, slow down…”  
  
Instead, the transgenic positions his rock hard shaft against Logan’s anus and without warning or preparation, he pushes in. Logan hisses loudly in pain that is all-encompassing, like he’s being split in two by the hard object brutalizing its way inside him.  
  
“Hurts, please, Alec!”  
  
Logan struggles, orders and then begs Alec to stop, but the transgenic continues to roughly thrust in and out of him adamantly, like he’d never get a chance to do it again. Logan gasps in pain but his prides refuses to let him scream. Mentally he tries to rationalize the pain he feels as being the result of the torture that came before, and not what is being done to him now. Maybe he is still hallucinating; maybe this is just another snake venom-induced nightmare. Because surely his boyfriend, his Alec, the man who just told him he loved him, wouldn’t possibly,  _willingly_  do this to him.  
  
He weathers through the pain until Alec finds his release inside the man trapped beneath him. Alec doesn’t even bother to wait for Logan or even check if he came. Suddenly, as if returning to sanity, the roughness of his treatment dissipates and he starts kissing Logan’s bare shoulder.  
  
“God, you’re so beautiful, baby…” he pulls out none too gently and fondles Logan’s ass, patting it rather harshly before he turns Logan on his back again.  
  
That’s when he sees the tears running down the human’s face. Alec leans down to lick the wetness away as if to remove all evidence of what he’s just done. And then he tries to kiss his lips.  
  
“You’re not Alec,” Logan whispers, making the X5 stop.  
  
Seconds pass in deathly silence before he pulls up to look into Logan’s eyes. And that’s probably the point at which he decides to give up the charade. That smile on his perfectly chiseled face morphs into an ice cold smirk.  
  
“What gave me away?” Even his voice changes a bit.  
  
Somewhere during the time he was being raped, the pain, the betrayal, the shock of realization… it’d all gotten too much to bear, to the point where Logan suspects it might have paralyzed him completely. Now though, he pushes and punches his attacker frantically, hardly making a dent but he tries anyway. The X5 simply laughs and holds his bandaged hands above his head.  
  
“Careful with the splints, baby. You do want to keep using your fingers in the future, don’t you?”  
  
“Who are you?”  
  
The transgenic licks his lips. “X5-493. You might know me by the name my eleven rogue brothers and sisters once gave me.”  
  
Logan freezes, the blood in his veins turning to ice.  
  
“I am Ben.”  
  
*****  
***  
*****  
  
_Logan wakes up with a silent scream on his lips, cursing his stupid brain for making him relive the first time Ben raped him. Again.  
  
For a second he panics because he can’t recall how he got here, back in his own bed. He’s pretty sure he’d chosen the couch in his study to crash on last night. It’s the farthest he could get from Alec who was sleeping in the master bedroom, _ their  _bedroom.  
  
The sun is up, and it’s really bright out, which means Logan slept through the night and well into the day. He curses Alec softly for manipulating him into that luscious warm bath – it’s what must have lulled him to sleep against his best intentions.  
  
As if right on cue, the X5 walks into the bedroom with a breakfast tray in hand. He must have heard Logan stir awake with his freakish hearing all the way from the kitchen or wherever he’d been.  
  
“Morning, coffee?” he asks mildly.  
  
“Please,” Logan smiles, or at least tries to without really looking up at Alec.  
  
“Got your favorite, course I’ll never understand how oatmeal can be anybody’s favorite… and look, fresh cut strawberries.”  
  
“Where’d you get them?”  
  
“Max was here, while you were sleeping. She dropped some supplies off.”  
  
Logan nods and goes back to sipping his coffee, not touching the oatmeal or the fruit at all.  
  
“Please eat something, Logan.”  
  
There is a kind of desperation in those words that Alec tries his best to hide because the last thing he wants to do is transfer his fears and frustrations over to Logan. The man has enough to deal with on his own. Unfortunately for him, Logan knows him way too well.  
  
Logan isn’t hungry, but hearing Alec’s plea tugs at something inside him fiercely. He takes a few bites, after which Alec takes the tray back to the kitchen. Several minutes later, he finds himself still standing over the sink, washing utensils that have never been cleaner since the day they came down the assembly line.  
  
It occurs to him that he might be avoiding Logan. And he very well knows why: because he doesn’t want to hear the gory details about how his psychotic genetic clone slash serial killer got close enough to rape his lover.  
  
He fights the tears again and pulls himself together, before returning to the bedroom where he finds Logan looking out the window at the clear blue skies.  
  
“Do you want to go out today? Sun’s out, for a while at least.”  
  
Logan turns to look at Alec, and this time he resolutely forces his eyes to stay on the face that he once never wanted to look away from, but now reminds him of things he’d rather forget.  
  
“I want to keep going.”  
  
Alec swallows, hard, “Okay.”  
  
Logan pulls the blanket up to his chest and takes a deep breath. He needs to get this out, it’s now or never. “I want you to know that… I fought as hard as I could. But h-he was… he was too strong and….”  
  
Alec wants to come closer, hold his boyfriend tight to himself; never let him go. But now is not the time, hell it may never be.  
  
“I know, Logan. None of this is your fault. If anything it’s  _mine_  for not finding you soon enough. By the time Max and I got back from Diego the trail had gone cold. God, I shouldn’t have left you alone in the first place. I shouldn’t have ignored my churning gut when you didn’t return my calls. Should have gotten Joshua to watch you…”  
  
“I don’t need a fucking babysitter,” Logan can’t help but snap, but immediately regrets it. Besides, after everything that’s happened, maybe he did need one after all. Regardless, Alec doesn’t deserve his anger.  
  
“I’m sorry.”  
  
“Please stop saying that. You did nothing wrong, buddy.”  
  
Logan looks up at Alec, tears rapidly welling up in his hazel eyes, “I wouldn’t be so sure.” _  
  
*****  
***  
***  
  
[Eleven days to impact…]**  
  
The next day, Logan finds himself swinging from chains that suspend his arms high above his head.  
  
His toes barely touch the dank, blood-stained floor where his ankles have been shackled and spread two feet apart. It’s not a new position - Barton did this to him once before. The difference is, this time he’s been stripped naked too.  
  
Barton isn’t here today; there are three other people in the room instead – two familiar faces and one not so much. It doesn’t take long for Logan to decipher who it is – given her red robes that sweep the floor under her feet and look to be a hundred years old, and her oddly-shaped bald head. She’s the one they call Moorehead, child-abusing transgenic-hating high priestess of the Familiars.  
  
“I can’t believe you got made within the first ten minutes, disappointing, 493,” Ralph takes a jibe at Ben, as if to show him up in front of their discerning employer. She goes on to say something about him not being able to keep it in his pants, but Logan is barely listening. If there is a hint of envy in her tone, he couldn’t care less for that either.  
  
Logan holds his head high, and keeps his eyes on the statuesque woman before him, watching him intently. His limbs are numb from being restrained for so long and the aches and pains from… from yesterday still linger. But he’d be damned before he lets any of that show so long as this bitch is around.  
  
“It was a stupid plan to begin with.” Ben shoots back, “Did you really think he wouldn’t recognize his own damn boyfriend?”  
  
The two transgenics continue to bicker and snark until Moorehead shuts them down. “Enough! We’ve clearly underestimated this one. Just concentrate on the one piece of information you did manage to get out of him. Something happened four years ago, something to do with Manticore. What was that?”  
  
Logan continues to glare at her with an expression that probably says ‘as if’ with two exclamation marks; at least he hopes that’s what it says.  
  
Moorehead rises from her chair and walks up to him, her voice deceptively soft. “I’m sure you have questions too, Mr. Cale. Let’s trade, shall we? For instance, would you like to know how 493 survived? I could tell you…”  
  
Logan speaks then, even though it’s hard to breathe in his strenuously stretched condition. “That’s not hard to put together. Max left his body for Manticore to find. They must have revived him like they did Max and Zack, re-indoctrinated him. Except they couldn’t get rid of the psychopath he’s always been inside – which explains why he’s part of Phoenix now and working for you guys. Hell, he’s probably doing it for free.”  
  
Ben smirks and picks up a grotesque looking black leather whip before approaching their captive from behind. Logan tenses in anticipation but he doesn’t have to wait too long. The whip falls full-force; a second later agonizing pain blooms in a diagonal line across his back, making Logan scream despite his best intentions to not give Ben the satisfaction.  
  
Ben smirks victoriously, holding Logan’s naked waist from behind and shushing him in a mocking way. When finally Logan manages to catch his breath, he can’t help but mutter bitterly, “That was on the money, I take it.”  
  
“Except the free part,” Ben replies. “Can’t complain about the perks though,” and hits Logan again, the leather cutting another fresh stripe into his pale skin.  
  
Moorehead shakes her head and turns to leave. “I suppose we should let 493 take it from here.”  
  
She throws a stern look at the X5, one filled with more than a modicum of revulsion, not just at what he is, but also because she knows exactly what he will be getting up to once she leaves, and is disgusted by it. Not that she’d expect any better from ‘transgenic filth’ like him.  
  
Ralph looks back warily at Logan, but then follows the client on her way out, locking the door behind her. Logan closes his eyes, the loud echo of metal tumblers sliding into place striking new fear in the deepening pit of his stomach.  
  
“Alone at last…”  
  
Ben slowly walks around and comes to stand in front of his prisoner. His right hand firmly grips the whip handle while the long tail trails behind him on the floor.  
  
“I know why you don’t look at me,” he whispers, putting a finger under Logan’s chin and forcing it up so he could look into his prey’s eyes.  
  
_Well, duh._  Logan doesn’t want to be reminded of or even imagine his Alec here in this horrible place, doing these horrible things. He doesn’t want to taint the memories of his beautiful, honorable, kind lover by associating him to this monster that stands before him.  
  
The fact that Ben knows it too is a problem, because he intends to use it to try and rile Logan up and get him to talk.  
  
“I’m curious, what do you see in that smart-assed man-child anyway? Other than his devilishly handsome looks, of course…”  
  
His hand trails down Logan’s chest almost nonchalantly all the way to his groin. Breath hitches in his throat and Logan hates himself for giving his tormentor that reaction, any reaction. Indeed Ben looks extremely pleased with himself.  
  
“Come on, don’t be like that, baby. It’s not like you’re going anywhere, you might as well talk to me.”  
  
When Logan still doesn’t respond or even look at Ben, the X5 swings the whip again, drawing blood for a second time and making him scream despite himself.  
  
“You wanna know a secret? I don’t really care about this whole… antidote to the antidote business, and by the way I vote we just call it the ‘dote’ from now on.”  
  
Logan would have rolled his eyes if it didn’t hurt so damn much to breathe.  
  
“I only volunteered to this assignment because I wanted to know what all the fuss was about… Logan Cale…”  
  
He leans in to lick at Logan’s throat, making the human flinch. “I mean, seriously, how does an ordinary descendant of the apes like yourself manage to fuck both the leader and the second-in-command of the almighty transgenic revolution, huh?”  
  
Logan can’t help but push. “Sibling jealousy?”  
  
“Please,” Ben shoots back, a little too quickly in Logan’s opinion. Not that he’s paying much attention to the X5’s rambling, but he’d rather have the man talk more and whip less, obviously.  
  
“Although I must admit, my genetic twin sure has good taste,” the whip lands on Logan’s buttocks this time to emphasize his point.  
  
He grabs the human around his stomach from behind and whispers in Logan’s ear sinisterly. “Bet your  _Alec_  doesn’t treat this gorgeous piece of ass like it should be, huh, beautiful? Well, we’re going to change that,” he rubs the rising welts on Logan’s ass almost lovingly.  
  
Logan closes his eyes in disgust, trying not to let the tears fall, “Alec doesn’t hurt me.”  
  
Ben suddenly lets go, sending his prisoner swinging precariously in his bonds, then comes around to stand in front of him again.  
  
“Tell me what I need to know, and I’ll stop hurting you, I promise.”  
  
The tone has suddenly switched from cold and sarcastic to soft and almost… apologetic. It’d be so easy to give in to that brief moment of kindness, to give in to the hands that until two seconds ago were beating him mercilessly but are now caressing his face and neck oh so gently. It’d be so damn easy to pretend this is Alec, his best friend, his lover and protector, his everything.  
  
But it isn’t.  
  
Logan leans forward and brings his lips up close to Ben’s exquisitely chiseled face. The X5 takes a step forward allowing Logan to draw in a ragged breath and whisper resolutely into his ear.  
  
“Go to hell.”  
  
Ben takes a step back, the cold mask of indifference back on his face. He moves behind Logan to where the human can’t see him anymore and waits. Eventually, when the human starts to tremble in phantom throes of a pain he knows is coming (any time now) Ben brings the whip down on his back… again, and again and again.  
  
Logan loses count of how many times the whip falls. His entire world collapses upon itself until nothing remains but gut-wrenching, flesh-splitting pain. It rings in his ears like a thousand screams, floods his eyesight with liquid blackness, and burns his parched throat like only raw, undiluted agony can. Pain is constant, never ending, like the whip never actually lifts off of his skin to fall back again.  
  
He can feel the drops of blood slowly ebbing out of a thousand cuts crisscrossing his back, ass, and thighs, and dripping onto the floor. He wishes he could collapse upon it as well, but he is strung up by the unrelenting chains, kept painfully upright, not given a moment of rest from his torment.  
  
With each lash he feels another little piece of his sanity eroded and washed away, reducing him to a creature without thought or reason, just someone, no, something, controlled by fear and pain and dread. And he only has one wish left – for all this to stop.  
  
_Please, just… stop._  
  
“You know how to make it stop, baby,” the snake-hiss is back in his ear, making Logan realize he must have started to beg out loud already.  
  
Tears fall down his face in utter disappointment with himself even as it wars with relief because Ben speaking to him and him understanding Ben means his mind isn’t completely lost yet. He remembers his name, and it’s not ‘baby’.  
  
“Billions of lives,” he gasps, every single syllable starves him of much-needed breath and yet he needs this to be said.  
  
“W-what would you do?”  
  
The transgenic starts almost dramatically, his arm pausing mid-swing.  
  
“Did you just actually ask me that? Looks like I broke you after all, Mr. Cale. You forget who I am.”  
  
He grabs the hair on the back of Logan’s head and pulls him back roughly, practically spitting in his face as he grounds out his designation.  
  
“I am X5 - 4.9.3.”  
  
Logan looks up into the sea-green eyes glinting above him, close enough that he can make out the agitated speckles of gold at the rims of those pupils even without glasses.  
  
His Alec’s eyes.  
  
“No,” he whispers, fighting the black swell of unconsciousness threatening to muffle his last desperate attempt to reason with his captor. “You’re Ben. You’re Max’s little b-brother…”  
  
Ben’s hand tightens its grip around Logan’s hair but he doesn’t respond.  
  
“A-and you,” he pants, eyes closing, unable to fight the darkness any longer, “you didn’t answer my quest…”  
  
Logan drifts away, his bleeding, broken shell of a body still hanging limply in its chains.  
  
*****  
***  
*****  
  
_Alec is the one pacing back and forth now, his rage palpable in every heavy, deliberately placed step.  
  
He’s the one unable to look at Logan who’s back in his favored corner of the couch, knees pulled up to his chest, arms wrapped around them tight.  
  
“Alec…”  
  
The soldier continues to pace, his face visibly red, lips moving restlessly but no words escape his choked throat.  
  
“Alec please, will you just… please come sit next to me?” Logan pleads, and instantly Alec obeys. Mainly because he’s having a hard time refusing Logan anything these days.  
  
“Look, I know this can’t be easy to hear, so if you’re not comfortable…”  
  
“No! I’m fine,” Alec cuts in, shaking his head fervently. He can’t possibly make this about himself (his guilt, his anger, his jealousy or whatever). He wrings his hands together to keep them from tearing something apart.  
  
“Please continue…”  
  
Logan sighs heavily then takes off his glasses to rub at his eyes.  
  
“You have to understand, I was ready to die. After two weeks passed and no help came,” he pauses when he spots Alec wince (and maybe a part of him needed to see that) “I knew I couldn’t resist them physically much longer. And I just… wanted it to end.”  
  
Alec frowns, terrified by this new turn in the conversation. “Logan, please tell me you didn’t…”  
  
“Try to kill myself?” Logan scoffs softly. “No, I thought about it, but I didn’t. Something happened that night that made me change my mind.”  
  
Logan stares off into empty space, piecing together the pain-riddled, disjointed memories of that night.  
  
“I felt, for the first time since it all started, which is weird ‘cause you’d think it’d be the first thing I’d feel after they nabbed me… but that night was the first time I realized the total unfairness of it all. There I was, trying to save the fucking world, literally, and what do I get in return? Torture, pain, abandonment?”  
  
Alec looks away again. But this time Logan didn’t do it on purpose. He sighs, knowing what he’s about to reveal next will hurt Alec a hundred times more.  
  
“I was angry; pissed off beyond belief. That’s when I decided I wasn’t just going to roll over and die. But if I wanted to survive this, I’d have to fight back, and the only way I could was…”  
  
Logan sighs, “To maybe, not fight at all.” _  
  
*****  
***  
***  
  
[Nine days to impact…]**  
  
“Wakey wakey… come on beautiful,” The words aren’t deriding, the voice isn’t harsh. And yet the first thing Logan remembers feeling when he comes to is absolute revulsion.  
  
He finds himself lying on his stomach, not on his usual mattress, but on a cold metal slab four feet above ground level. That’s different.  
  
He squints against the bright hospital lights, having gotten used to the combination of pitch dark plus a single strobe hanging from a cord overhead. This is a different room, filled with medical equipment and refractive surfaces, like an operating theater.  
  
Then he sees Ben sitting right beside him with his elbows resting on the slab and his face very close to Logan’s – smirking. “Morning, sunshine.”  
  
Logan’s instinctive reaction is to slink away, or maybe spit in the guy’s face. But he remembers the night before, at least what feels like the night before, and recalls his resolution to fight, to survive. So he forces himself to stay still and keep his eyes on Ben. Matching the other man’s unreadable gaze isn’t easy. But he does it anyway.  
  
Ben, for his part, stares right back at him in what Logan can only describe as curiosity and contemplation. The trance is broken when Logan reflexively moves an arm that’s starting to cramp, which is when he realizes he’s chained down, again.  
  
“Be grateful a cramp is all you got,” Ben hikes his eyebrows for effect, “the miracle of nanomites, yet again.”  
  
Logan looks down at himself then, wondering if it’s a good thing or bad that his lack of clothes doesn’t bother him as much as it did a few days ago. He flexes his spine dreading the pain he remembers so vividly, but it doesn’t come. All he feels is a muscle-deep ache under skin that seems too tight and leathery, like it wasn’t his skin at all.  
  
“That’s right, baby, good as new,” Ben runs his hand down Logan’s naked back and ass, smooth and unblemished, nothing like the bloody shredded mess they were not so long ago.  
  
The human seethes inside and trembles on the outside, but keeps his eyes on Ben, face devoid of any and all expressions.  
  
Ben narrows his eyes. “You’re looking for your boyfriend in me again. And I told you, that’s not going to work.”  
  
Logan rests the side of his face back on the slab, but his eyes don’t waver. Ben leans in closer so he can feel the X5’s hot breath mingling with his own. “I guess what I have planned for you today will serve as a good reminder of who I am, and where you are.”  
  
When Logan still doesn’t react, Ben blinks and looks away, standing up and walking off for a second, like he couldn’t stand the heat in Logan’s eyes anymore.  
  
“Our last meeting knocked you out for twenty hours. I’ve been severely reprimanded for wasting your precious time,” he says before turning back, hands crossed behind him. “And I’ve been asked to go easy on you today. So I figure this is a good opportunity to get you cleaned up.”  
  
He smirks not so kindly, “You’ve been stinking up the joint for a while now, bet you’d like a bath too, huh?”  
  
Before Logan can react, the doors swing open and two people he’s never seen before walk in, wheeling behind them a strange contraption that looks like a large mobile cistern. The man is well-built and looks to be in his forties, the woman is blonde and petite like Max, and looks no older than Ralph. He can tell they’re Phoenix because they’re both dressed like Ben, all black from neck to toe, and also because they sport the same exact ‘military’ snarl on their cold, sun-starved faces.  
  
“Just in time! Logan Cale, meet your new handlers – X4-026 and X6-595."  
  
Logan tries his best not to let his growing anxiety show. Three transgenics on one  _him_ … this can’t possibly be good.  
  
His chains are unhooked but before Logan can get his bearings, he’s hauled up and dunked into the steel tub full of ice and water. He gasps and wheezes violently as the cold strangles all the oxygen out of his lungs. Every inch of his skin burns from the fucking cold. The woman titters while the X4 gleefully holds the struggling human under water for what feels like hours.  
  
“Alright, take it easy, two-six,” Logan hears Ben say. “Any longer and they’ll be chewing us out for killing their only source of intel.”  
  
“For whatever he’s worth,” the X6 snorts.  
  
When he’s finally allowed to surface and breathe again, Logan curses like he’s never cursed before.  
  
“Humans,” the X4 taunts him. “So fucking weak, I can hold my breath underwater for fifteen minutes, and you apes can’t last fifteen seconds.”  
  
“Congratulations,” Ben cuts in wryly. “Now can you please put him back on the table again?”  
  
The human is dumped back onto the metal slab, dripping and shaking violently. His usually swarthy skin is bleached of all color and reduced to an eerie shade of snow-white. His lips are an ugly shade of blue rapidly approaching purple.  
  
Clearly the theme for the day is humiliation, he figures as soon as he can think again. His eyes prickle with unshed tears and insurmountable rage burbles painfully where he’s suppressing it deep in his ribcage. But once he’s out of the freezing water, Logan seeks out his primary tormentor and looks him straight in the eye, again.  
  
This time, Ben is clearly agitated. “You know what, beautiful? I don’t like you with stubble. Let’s get rid of it, shall we?”  
  
He signals to the X4 who approaches Logan with a sharp-edged straight razor. They don’t chain him down because really, what are the chances he’d evade three transgenics and even if he did, where the hell will he go? They’re in the middle of nowhere, surrounded by hundreds of miles of challenging terrain that’s home to these bastards but Logan knows basically nothing about.  
  
He tries to hold as still as he can despite his shivering so the X4 won’t nick his jugular by mistake. At first the X4 does a decent job getting rid of the stubble. Then a shallow slice along his smooth jaw makes him jerk. Logan realizes the asshole cut him on purpose. Ben stays quiet, watching the proceedings from the sidelines.  
  
“Oops, did I hurt you, little man? Would you like me to stop?”  
  
Logan lifts his face up, deliberately baring more of his neck to the bastard. “You’re going to have to try harder than that,  _two-six_.”  
  
In hindsight he really shouldn’t have irked a transgenic holding a sharp object to his throat, because the X4 does try harder – not just on his face and neck but also his heaving chest. Logan grimaces occasionally, and the woman laughs some more. But then he notices Ben twitching ever so slightly at the sight of blood drops blossoming at various spots on his naked body.  
  
Nobody sees it but Logan. Every time he’s nicked, Ben flinches just a little bit harder, until he’s forcing himself to look away, blinking rapidly. Logan can’t help the little upturn in his lips. He keeps his eyes on the X5, ignoring the stinging cuts because truth is, after the fifteen days he’s just had, the little nicks barely bother him.  
  
And after a few minutes, the X4 realizes it too. So he changes tactics.  
  
Logan gasps when a calloused hand closes around his genitals, and starts to tighten the squeeze. The X4 hisses at him ominously, “I’m going to enjoy snuffing that fucking light out of your eyes, very much.”  
  
And then he’s pulling Logan’s legs apart and roughly penetrating him with two fat fingers.  
  
_No._  
  
The panic attack comes on quick, impairing whatever little struggle he puts up against the bastard. He’s been raped once already, he can’t go through it again. All resolutions to stay stoic before his torturers go right out the window. Instead, instinctively and for reasons he’d rather not examine too carefully at that moment, his eyes turn back to Ben.  
  
_Please, please…_  
  
This is the moment the female chooses to join the action. She helps overpower the human while the X4 pushes Logan down until he’s flat on his back then grips one leg behind the knee to pull it up to his shoulder. Logan squirms and writhes violently trying to buck them off but it’s a no-contest. And just when he thinks that all hope is lost, someone grabs the X4 from behind and pulls him off Logan.  
  
Ben slams the older transgenic against a glass partition wall that shatters with a loud crash, taking the X4 down to the floor with it. The girl is so shocked she lets go of Logan’s arms and moves away.  
  
“What the fuck, 493! The commander is going to hear about…” but the X4 doesn’t get to finish as a powerful punch smashes his jaw out of its place.  
  
Ben grabs him by the collar and pulls him up to get in his face. “Oh, the commander will hear about this alright. I’ll tell him myself how you jeopardized the biggest contract Phoenix has ever received. You’re obsolete, X4, and I outrank you. Remember that when you turn in your report. Now get out, both of you!”  
  
The two new handlers rush out without another word. Silence stretches in the operating theater, broken only by feeble sounds of Logan’s ragged breathing as he cowers on the table, shaking uncontrollably. Ben stands with his back to Logan; he hasn’t turned to look at him once since the other two left.  
  
“Do not for a second think I don’t know what you’re up to,” he growls quietly. “And just because I didn’t want to be mooned by that ugly-ass bastard, don’t think it’s starting to work.”  
  
When he finally does turn to face Logan, he finds the human no longer folded thrice over himself. Instead he is sitting up, naked, wet, his spine straight as a ramrod.  
  
Slowly, shockingly, he leans forward, until his head is ever so lightly resting on Ben’s shoulder, transferring the dampness of his hair to the other man’s black t-shirt. The X5 tenses up, and for a second it looks like he’s about to shove Logan aside, possibly all the way to the floor.  
  
Except he doesn’t. Instead, he just stands there, not moving, not breathing… not touching Logan back in any way whatsoever.  
  
*****  
***  
*****  
  
_Alec stands at the full-length window with his arms crossed, watching dusk descend upon the Seattle skyline. Miniscule tremors rack his spine, invisible to the naked eye but enough to make his voice shake.  
  
“Stockholm syndrome… and to fake it, all you had to do was… think of me.”  
  
Logan nods quietly, staring down into his lap. There is no judgment in Alec’s words, which surprises him. He’d expected Alec to be angry, disgusted, jealous even. Anything to validate his own guilt and need for self-flagellation, but instead Alec just seems… empathetic. Which makes sense – in his time at Manticore and especially after Rachel, 494 had also had to make certain compromises to survive.  
  
“Did it get better?”  
  
“It didn’t get worse,” Logan shrugs, not feeling particularly accomplished for it.  
  
“Moorehead visited the next day and personally supervised an interrogation session. The snake made another appearance and this time they probably would’ve succeeded – nasty little things – except Ben was there. And he… _ suggested  _the possibility that the venom might corrupt my blood composition and render all their analysis useless.”  
  
Alec doesn’t look impressed by that at all.  
  
Logan continues, “So they dropped the snake and tried electrocution instead. But then, twenty minutes after they started, the whole facility suffered a massive power surge and the lights went out for like five hours.”  
  
Alec frowns. “Ben?”  
  
“Maybe, there’s no way to be sure. Anyway, the next day they switched to psychological stuff instead. Told me their negotiations with Max had failed because apparently she didn’t care about what happened to me here.”  
  
Alec keeps his gaze turned away.  
  
“Alec,” Logan sighs because he knows exactly what’s going through his boyfriend’s mind. “It’s okay. I would’ve done the same thing in her position.”  
  
Alec turns to Logan with utter misery etched into every inch of his face. “I know,” he whispers. “I would have too.”  
  
And just hearing that being said out loud, from a purely selfish perspective, despite knowing the grave implications of the alternative, hurts.  
  
“We were counting on them not being too stupid to know they _ had  _to keep you alive, because you were their only lead. But it doesn’t mean we didn’t try other ways to get you back,” Alec knows he is rambling. But he knows any further explanation is nothing but words and excuses at this point.  
  
So he returns to crouch beside Logan, cautiously putting a hand on one of his knees and squeezing it gently.  
  
“Someday buddy, when you’re ready… I will tell you exactly what Max, Joshua and I went through in those twenty-five days. But none of that matters right now, it’s nowhere in the vicinity of even remotely important.”  
  
Logan puts a hand on top of Alec’s, stroking his knuckles lightly. It makes the younger man smile.  
  
“What happened then?”  
  
“They had a breakthrough.” _  
  
*****  
***  
***  
**


	3. Chapter 3

**[Seven days to impact…]**  
  
_One week to the end of the world_ , Logan thinks idly, if Max fails that is. Or he succumbs.  
  
Morning rolls in dank and dreary, thunder rolling somewhere in the background and no sun in sight. Personally, if he were the architect of the human apocalypse, the least he’d have done for the poor bastards is made their last few days on this planet bright and sunny.  
  
He crouches in the far corner of his floor mattress, back against the wall of his usual cell. They gave him his grey t-shirt and camouflage pants back for which he’s thankful, even if he’d never admit it. One of his ankles is chained to a hook on the floor, allowing him movement to the toilet bowl and back but not to the door or the chair where he’s usually interrogated. And not to the jug of water sitting on the table either.  
  
Logan rests his hands on top of his knees pulled up into his chest, and looks up at the only little square of dull blue sky visible through the ceiling.  
  
He thinks back to the day before when he was hanging from his chains right in this room, again, naked, ankles spread and locked into steel hooks in the floor. He remembers how the electrodes taped to various places on his body had heated up when current flowed through them. How he’d screamed without inhibition, screamed like he had no pride, no dignity left to speak of.  
  
That pain… that searing electricity that fried every nerve ending in his body and nearly stopped his heart… he’s never experienced it before and God knows he never wants to again. For the first time since this ordeal began, Logan had  _wanted_  to just… give in. His capacity to bear any more torture diminishes with every passing day, and if something doesn’t give soon…  
  
Logan sighs and hugs himself harder.  
  
He remembers the incredible rush of relief when a power surge knocked all the lights out, and the momentary hysteria it caused among his captors thinking Max had caught up with them after all. They couldn’t restore the power all night, which amuses him to no end.  
  
What he tries really hard not to think about though, is what happened later, when Ben crept up behind him in the dark after the others left him still hanging from his chains. How Ben’s presence, while intimidating and abhorrent to say the least, was still more welcome than the alternative he’d just been spared from. How he’d forced himself to lean back and rest against the relative warmth of the transgenic.  
  
If that singular action took Ben by surprise, he hid it well.  
  
Logan instructed himself to think of it as an undercover mission, a strategy to neutralize a key enemy asset… one that required he allow the X5’s hands to rove all over his naked body without complaint. He tried his damnedest not to shake when Ben worried and pinched his nipples, and bit the corner of his neck leaving two neat rows of teeth impressions. He couldn’t help but whimper when Ben took his flaccid cock in his hands and stroked it, humping his own leather-clad erection against Logan’s ass.  
  
Logan knew this was a test. This was Ben checking to see if Logan actually was developing an attachment to the X5 (he obviously didn’t care that even if he was, it was probably just Stockholm syndrome and nothing real) or if he was faking it. So in order to garner the ‘right’ reaction, Logan closed his eyes and pretended it was Alec behind him, Alec’s hands on him, Alec whispering in his ear, commanding him to come…  
  
He tries not to think about how willingly he’d obeyed.  
  
He is jarred out of his thoughts (and is grateful for it) when the door swings open to his left. Ralph and Ben walk in, dragging in with them a mousy middle-aged man with greasy hair, three-day old stubble, and dirt under his fingernails. Ralph shoves him forward until he’s barely a feet away from Logan.  
  
“Look carefully, is this the guy?” she asks him, pointedly ignoring the guy in question himself.  
  
For a second Logan feels mildly sorry for the poor man, until he fixes his shifty eyes on Logan and nods his head. “It’s him. This is Eyes Only.”  
  
_Crap._  
  
His last line of defense just crumbled, and he’s now more exposed and vulnerable than ever. Like everyone else, all Ralph knew before was that Logan  _worked_  for Eyes Only. He sees the smug look on Ralph’s face, wondering what exactly she planned to do with this information now. Without wasting any more time though, she turns and stalks out of the cell with the little snitch in tow. That leaves him alone inside his cage with the other X5 – Ben.  
  
They look at each other for several moments, each unwilling to back down from the stare-off. Ben is the first to blink, though Logan can’t be sure why. He walks to the table, pours that delectable looking substance called water into a tall glass, and wordlessly brings it over to Logan. The human’s eyes go wide but he accepts the water without a word. Ben drags the chair closer to sit beside him, watching him drink.  
  
Logan licks his lips, and tries his luck again. “Who is that man?”  
  
Ben doesn’t hesitate. “His name is Engel. He was part of Renfro’s inner circle, apparently, one of the scientists who helped design some… virus, I think he said, that he personally injected into Max’s bloodstream to kill the big bad Eyes Only aka… you?”  
  
Logan sighs and looks away, this just keeps getting better and better.  
  
“That’s what happened four years ago didn’t it? – You got infected, and Max broke into Manticore for the cure. That’s the day she burned Manticore down.”  
  
Ben leans forward, puts a finger under Logan’s chin to make him look up. “That  _cure_  - that’s the ‘dote’. Isn’t it?”  
  
Logan keeps his mouth shut. But Ben smirks anyway, not needing any further confirmation. He leans back into his chair, no longer touching the human. “Guess they know where to start now. You might be exhausting your usefulness to us sooner than you think, baby.”  
  
Logan leans his own head back against the wall. “About time,” he says, meaning that at least the torture will be over.  
  
“You don’t get it, do you? If this Engel is able to isolate the cure they’ll have no need to keep you alive. They’ll just drain all your blood into plastic bags and get rid of you.”  
  
Logan smiles tiredly. “In eight days, I’d be dead anyway. The comet is still coming, and I’ve got the ‘dote’ in me, remember?”  
  
Ben frowns. “But you have transgenic blood. You’re… resilient…”  
  
Logan snorts. “Not enough. I was one of Sandeman’s first guinea pigs when he brewed the antidote, trust me, it didn’t stick. Ralph knows this, she was there.”  
  
“So… you’ve always known that you wouldn’t survive?”  
  
Logan looks up at Ben with half-lidded eyes, and something occurs to him then. “You know, I just realized this might be the first ‘civil’ conversation that we’ve ever had.”  
  
The look on Ben’s face is unreadable, but when he speaks he completely ignores Logan’s last statement, just like Logan ignored his. “So all this time, you and Max and Alec, you’ve all been fighting for… what… complete strangers? People you don’t know, people who hate you just ‘cause you exist?”  
  
“…”  
  
Ben shakes his head, and there are a hundred different emotions flitting across his face even if Logan can’t completely figure them out with his poor eyesight. He gets up and leaves abruptly, leaving Logan alone with his thoughts.  
  
Every cloud has a silver lining, allegedly. Because they think Engel can give them the answer, they leave Logan alone for a couple days, coming in only to draw more vials of his blood every now and then.  
  
Oddly enough, Ben doesn’t show for the next few days either.  
  
Logan wonders if they are trying a new torture tactic – isolation, or reverse psychology maybe. A part of him, a really tiny one, actually misses Ben… or maybe he just misses his face, one he’s been relying on for the strength to endure. He misses the discreet acts of kindness that only Ben offers to him in this desolate place – like bringing him food and water, saving him from the snake, possibly electrocution, and other X4s who try to rape him.  
  
He also misses the challenge of trying to uncover Ben’s humanity, little by little, without speaking a word or raising a finger. He’s seen glimpses of it, and despite everything that’s happened, Logan is convinced it’s there. Buried underneath all the Manticore re-conditioning and the psychotic breakdowns, there is still some of that curious wide-eyed kid Max once described, the one who had so many questions, one so desperate to find answers he wasn’t above making them up.  
  
It’s that kid, Logan thinks, that volunteered to this assignment. Hell, even the adult Ben shows no  _real_  interest in human genocide. No, he volunteered because Logan is his only connection to the people that are supposed to mean something to him – like Max, and even Alec.  
  
So yes, Logan does miss Ben. And after three days and three nights pass and no one comes to torment him or ask him any questions whatsoever, he is quietly horrified when he realizes that in this very moment, he might even miss Ben more than he misses Alec.  
  
*****  
***  
*****  
  
_“Do you know where he went?” Alec asks calmly, sounding surprisingly objective while Logan is starting to freak himself out with some of his own mental musings and retrospective realizations.  
  
“No.” But something in Alec’s eyes tells him _ he _does.  
  
“The attacks from the Familiars were relentless. They kept trying to destroy our shipments both domestic and international. But never had we seen a transgenic on their side, until that day in Anchorage, Alaska.”  
  
Logan is so shocked he rises from his spot on the couch. “You saw Ben in Alaska? You… you fought him?”  
  
Alec runs a hand through his hair. “Not directly, no. While we were fighting the Familiars, one guy managed to break through our defenses. But he didn’t destroy anything, just grabbed a case of vials and… left. Max and I were back-to-back when we spotted him but we were too shocked to react. And by the time we moved, he was in the wind.”  
  
He doesn’t tell Logan how Max was so shaken, she didn’t utter a word for hours.  
  
Logan frowns. “But that doesn’t make sense. The antidote had been in the water for days, it’s not like Phoenix couldn’t get it right out of the tap?”  
  
“I don’t think Ben was there on behalf of Phoenix or the Conclave.”  
  
“Then what was he…?”  
  
And then he stops, realizing he already knew the answer to his own question.  
  
Alec scowls a little sulkily because he is thinking exactly the same thing. A big part of him is jealous and resentful, but not enough to _ not _feel grateful.  
  
Ben was trying to get the antidote to Logan. Maybe he wanted to try it himself; maybe he thought one more dose would do the trick.  
  
“That’s the first time we realized the Conclave wasn’t working alone. All the pieces started to fall in place. We realized Ralph and you hadn’t been kidnapped together, that Ralph was actually working _ with _them. Remember how she’d go missing for like three-four days, supposedly to go see her human foster family in Montreal, Canada?”  
  
“Let me guess, she was skipping town to meet up with her Phoenix buddies?”  
  
“In Portland, Oregon to be exact. I followed her trail and it led me right to their fucking doorstep. There were a bunch of other X6s and X7s we’d never met before. I even offered to surrender hoping they’d take me to you, but they just wanted me dead.”  
  
Logan understands now. “And that’s where you found a clue that led you to Wisconsin?”  
  
Alec nods, “Was a goose chase at first but eventually we found someone who led us to that facility in the mountains. But by that time…”  
  
Logan completes his sentence in a voice that’s barely more than a whisper. “It was too late.” _  
  
*****  
***  
***  
  
[Two days to impact…]**  
  
Logan paces back and forth as much as the length of chain lets him to in his cell. He hasn’t seen or heard from anyone, except the X4 who leaves him food and water each morning, or occasionally comes in to draw some of his blood.  
  
The first couple of days he’s relieved,  _obviously_. But after that he starts getting antsy, wondering what they might have discovered and if they’re any closer to foiling Max’s plan to save humanity.  
  
He’s acutely conscious of the clock ticking away to doomsday, as if in a rush to just get it over with already. With every day his frustration grows, stuck in this cage being useless, being a liability, while Max is out there fighting the toughest battle of her life. He can only hope she isn’t doing it alone, that Alec and Joshua and the others are there by her side, even if a part of him secretly wishes at least one of them is maybe still looking for  _him_ , off the side of their desk…  
  
There is a constriction around his chest that tightens with every hour: an unexplainable fear that grips at his throat and makes him sweat and pace until he’s too worn out to move. But he isn’t quite sure what he’s so afraid of, or for.  
  
Clarity returns two days before the alleged ‘coming’ when the door swings open and Ben walks in. What happens next involves no strategic intent on Logan’s part whatsoever, not even a rational forethought. Logan will never fully be able to explain, or even understand what madness drives him to practically charge the X5 and throw his arms around him.  
  
He doesn’t know who is more taken aback by Logan’s behavior: Ben or himself. Ben doesn’t return the hug though, keeps his hands entwined behind his back and basically just waits it out. Since there is no easy way to get out of this, Logan pulls away awkwardly, turning away so he doesn’t have to acknowledge the amusement in Ben’s eyes.  
  
“No, they haven’t figured it out yet. You can relax.”  
  
Logan looks back at Ben then, startled that the X5 had practically read his mind. Just like Alec does, all the time.  
  
And then out of the blue it hits him… that morbid fear he couldn’t explain before, returns with a vengeance and now he knows why. It’s like his legs are hacked off from under him and he collapses to his knees, struggling to breathe against a weight that’s getting ready to crush his lungs.  
  
Ben doesn’t immediately react, hanging back skeptically to gauge what Logan might be up to. “What’s wrong?”  
  
Logan looks up into the face that’s been his beloved for so long, and starts to laugh hysterically, struggling to contain his breakdown.  
  
“I-I just realized… I’m about to die, here,  _alone_. All alone. I won’t even get a chance to say goodbye to Alec…” And then he laughs some more, clutching his stomach with both arms, hunching over until his head nearly touches the floor.  
  
“Don’t get me wrong,” he stutters through his fits of laughter, “I’m… I’m ready. I’ve expected this for weeks but… oh God…oh, f-fuck. Fuck fuck fuck…”  
  
Ben closes the distance then and lowers himself to the floor to sit behind Logan. He hesitates for maybe a second before wrapping his arms around the human and pulls him back into his chest. Logan doesn’t have the energy or the will to resist. He simply goes where he’s led, leaning back into the X5’s chest behind him and that’s where he stays, concentrating on nothing but the spasmodic flow of air in and out of his lungs.  
  
A small plastic bottle is pushed under his nose. Logan doesn’t care where it came from, just accepts the offered drink and gulps it down in one swig. The water calms him down a bit.  
  
“You’re not going to die,” a voice whispers softly into his hair.  
  
Logan scoffs. “Really, and you know this how?”  
  
Before Ben can answer, they hear two sets of footsteps approaching. The X5 quickly moves away, leaving Logan on the floor while he takes a seat at the table pretending to be in the middle of an interrogation. The door opens and Moorehead and Ralph walk in, looking like they haven’t slept in about as much time as Logan’s been in isolation.  
  
“493?” Moorehead is surprised to see him, and Ralph just looks miffed. “Good you’re here; we’re heading to the lab for the demonstration. How about you accompany us, Mr. Cale?”  
  
Like Logan has a choice? He’s not hyperventilating anymore, but he is worried. Ben locks his wrists in handcuffs in front of him and leads him out of the cell after the women. It’s a long walk to the end of the corridor where Engel’s lab is, especially barefoot on a cold and suspiciously wet floor. Logan uses the time to scope out the place, not having seen anything but his cell and the operating theater, and memorizing what he can in the off-chance he gets to escape.  
  
The lab is… like a lab. It’s pretty well stocked and up-to-date for an ‘underground’ operation, which speaks to the massive monetary infusion Phoenix has gotten from the Conclave. Engel slouches in a corner with a tray full of syringes, and four transgenic soldiers stand beside him. It’s the shorter line of kids standing in front of, and being restrained by the soldiers that startles Logan. And now he’s very worried.  
  
The four kids – two boys and two girls, couldn’t be older than thirteen. Their faces are marked with bleeding scratches, tear tracks and undisguised terror. They’re dressed in casual clothes, like they’d been snatched right out of a school or a weekend barbecue party.  
  
“Ready when you are, Dr. Engel.” Moorehead commands, and right on cue, the soldiers force the kids to their knees.  
  
“What’s going on?” Logan asks, absently trying to get closer to the kids but Ben holds him back.  
  
“Engel re-created Renfro’s cure,” Ralph informs him, looking too smug for his liking. “And we’re about to run our first tests. Thought you might like to watch what happens when they’re exposed to the snake of the Coming…”  
  
“But, w-why can’t you just take their blood to run these tests?”  
  
“Hmm, let’s see…” Ralph pretends to think. “Maybe because  _someone_  wasted three weeks of our time so we have no choice but to go straight to human testing! Or maybe because, this is so much more fun.”  
  
Logan ignores the taunt that is obviously meant to make him feel guilt he does not deserve. “But you need to give them the antidote  _first_  to be able to test neutralizing it, right? H-have they had it yet?”  
  
It’s Engel who responds. “Yes, their drinking water’s been doctored for weeks.”  
  
Logan sighs in relief, but it doesn’t last once Engel starts injecting the children with his… whatever it is he’s got in those syringes. The children are crying and panicking, and one of the guards smacks the youngest boy on the back of his head.  
  
Logan tries to go to him but Ben grabs him from behind and holds him back. Silently he struggles, feeling betrayed because he thought Ben was on his side now. And then Ralph brings in the snake.  
  
“Ralph, don’t do this. You don’t have to… please…”  
  
His pleas fall on deaf ears. One by one the guards hold out each kid’s arm to be bitten by the Chilean Taripan. The girls scream and try to escape the death grip of the soldiers holding them down.  
  
“God, this is madness! Stop this, please!” Watching the kids writhe in pain is the worst thing they could have put him through. Logan trembles in Ben’s grip violently, praying the antidote works and Engel’s pathogen doesn’t.  
  
When the first fits begin, Logan starts talking to the kids, encouraging them to be brave. “Hang in there, just… ride it out, okay. You’ll be alright, I promise you… you will be okay…”  
  
He is lying through his teeth of course – he has no fucking idea if they’ll live or die. But they don’t need to know that. In his rage, he turns to Moorehead. “Whatever you do, you’re not going to win.”  
  
“Won’t I?” She smirks. It doesn’t escape Logan’s notice that she uses a singular pronoun and not plural.  
  
“Do you want to know how we intend to get Engel’s pathogen into the population? Well, I’ll tell you! Our dose, unlike your beloved Sandeman’s antigen, is airborne. Even as we speak, my people are in position all across the globe, ready to receive the shipment and fire it into the sky on New Year’s Eve. Stupid humans will think they’re looking up at fireworks, when in truth they’d be admiring the instrument of their own  _agonizing_  demises.”  
  
Logan narrows his eyes. “You don’t have enough time. It took nearly a month for Max to…”  
  
That’s when Moorehead completely loses it. She strides up to Logan and screams right in his face. “I will not have my people’s sole purpose of existence negated by transgenic filth like your Max and her equally abominable pack of friends!!”  
  
Obviously she feels no regret for insulting her own allies currently present in the room. The youngest girl screams the loudest against the unbearable pain and Logan loses all interest in Moorehead.  
  
Fifteen minutes later, three kids have made through the worst of it and now sit cross-legged on the floor, panting heavily. But the youngest girl is pale and unconscious, drops of blood dotting her lower lip.  
  
“No,” Logan whispers silently willing the girl to keep fighting, to live.  
  
He can feel his heart sinking – does this mean Engel’s cure will kill one in four people? That number is way too high for his liking. His only consolation is that Moorehead doesn’t look too happy with the experiment’s results either.  
  
“Explain!” She screams at Engel, who cowers and looks down at his notes, muttering nonsensically about how he needs more time and better test subjects and such.  
  
Ralph looks just as red-faced.  
  
“You have one more day, Doctor,” the high priestess informs him. “After that, I can assure you the antidote you went to such great lengths to consume yourself, is not going to be enough to keep you alive.”  
  
She turns to Logan then, “That goes for you too. Unless you change your mind about wanting to live – in which case you know what to do.”  
  
Without another word, she rushes out of the lab with both Ralph and Engel close on her heels, both looking very scared indeed. The four guards start to round up the kids, probably to take them to a holding cell of their own or worse. Logan turns to  _look_  at Ben, a look that the X5 responds to with annoyance and pouting. He lets go of Logan then and walks up to one of the guards.  
  
“Comrades! The test subjects can wait. Why don’t you go make sure our esteemed employer finds her ride comfortably?”  
  
He outranks all four soldiers, so they promptly throw him a “Yes sir!” and run out to escort Moorhead to her helicopter.  
  
Logan watches, heart pounding, as Ben gathers the unconscious girl into his arms. He’s nearly on the verge of bursting into tears when the transgenic looks up at him and whispers, “She’s breathing. She’ll be okay.”  
  
Logan exhales in relief and collapses to the floor on his knees, much like he did back in his cell not too long ago. Ben tilts his head towards him in amusement. “You’re making a habit of that.”  
  
“What will happen to these kids?” Logan can’t help but ask.  
  
Ben swallows and looks back at the other three teenagers huddling together.  
  
“I’ll do what I can.”  
  
*****  
***  
*****  
  
_Alec walks into the living room from the kitchen with two mugs of steaming coffee in his hands.  
  
“We found about a dozen kids hiding in the caves by the river. They’d been kidnapped from summer camp not too far away, but they were okay. Said one of the Phoenix soldiers apparently let them go.”  
  
Logan gratefully accepts the offered beverage. “Good to know.”  
  
Once Alec is settled beside him on the couch, Logan asks. “So, exactly what happened with Ralph again?”  
  
“That wasn’t part of the plan.”  
  
“What was the plan, exactly?”  
  
Alec looks anxious. “Remember I said we finally found someone who led us to the Manticore facility?”  
  
Logan waits while Alec bites his lip, “We tracked down Ames White, and offered him his son in exchange for getting you out.”  
  
Logan nearly drops his coffee mug. “WHAT?”  
  
“I knew you’d react like that but we weren’t going to go through with it! M-Maybe! I, I don’t know.”  
  
Logan sighs, this feels worse than when Alec had said before they wouldn’t have negotiated with the Conclave for his return. Max and he had been through hell and back to save that boy. It’d been his brave mother’s last and only wish.  
  
“But why White?”  
  
“The facility was locked down harder than Fort Knox. So they say, I don’t even know what Fort Knox is. There was no way we could get in past the drones of X7s covering the forest – you know those brats with too much bat in their genetic cocktails, who can communicate wordlessly via ultrasound waves?”  
  
Yeah, Logan remembers them. They can be a pain.  
  
“They also had those body heat detection monitors installed all around the perimeter. Only these systems were modified to howl like freaking banshees if an X5 got within zero point five clicks. We needed an inside man, and White was the only one we had any leverage on.”  
  
“And White agreed to help? After so many years, why does he suddenly want his son back?”  
  
Alec grimaces and finally admits the whole truth. “We told him we would kill his son if he didn’t cooperate.”  
  
Logan shakes his head, his disapproval plainly evident for Alec to see.  
  
“Look, it didn’t come to that. Besides, White wasn’t exactly selfless here. With only four days left to the Coming, he’d given up hope that you’d be any help. So from his perspective he wasn’t losing anything, just getting his son back.”  
  
“So what happened?”  
  
“He made an appointment to see Moorehead at the facility, and we followed him. He was supposed to switch off the monitors and call off the X7s then signal to us, so we could bust in, grab you and get out.”  
  
“But that’s not what happened?”  
  
“Ralph – she walked in on White switching off the monitors.”  
  
“So he killed her?”  
  
Alec shrugs, “I guess. She may have also remembered him as the guy who once lured her and her friends in front of a firing squad, who knows? I’m not losing any sleep over it.”  
  
The X5 takes a sip of his hot coffee, slurping loudly as if to accentuate his indifference. Logan scoffs but lets it be because truth is – as much as he believes everyone is worth saving, after what Ralph did, he’s not exactly cut up over her death either.  
  
“So what happened then?”  
  
“I guess, in the ruckus the two of them created, Moorehead was alerted. We were in position just on the outskirts of the forest waiting for White to call. But instead Moorehead ordered the X7s in the forest to come after us, and then… all hell broke loose.”  
  
Logan squints at his half-empty cup. “So, White was supposed to be on our side.”  
  
Alec narrows his eyes. “Why? What’d he do?”  
  
“He tried double-crossing us, I think.”  
  
“How?”  
  
Logan sighs deeply. “Let’s just say, once again, I was glad that Ben was there.”_  
  
*****  
***  
***  
  
[Four Hours to impact…]**  
  
Ben sits on the chair straddling it backwards, his gun lying beside him on the table. Logan sits on his mattress trying to read a scrap of newspaper on which his last meal arrived, holding the sheet two inches away from his blurry eyes.  
  
Any information on what’s happening in the outside world would be welcome today. Ben’s told him everything he knows but the X5 is just as isolated here as Logan so it isn’t much. Hence the struggle to read that faded piece of paper which he’s getting nowhere with. He could ask Ben for help, of course, but he’s just too proud and Ben is, of course, just enough of a bastard to  _make_  him ask for it.  
  
“Sorry we don’t keep any corrective lenses around here,” Ben teases, making Logan scowl. Way to show their genetically superior eyesight off to a half-blind man.  
  
“It’s fine,” he replies, folding the newspaper and putting it away. “This way I can pretend you all aren’t as awesomely cut as you really are.”  
  
Ben looks confused, “Cut?”  
  
“It’s… never mind.”  
  
Logan is smiling, but he’s also lying, sort of. He’s just glad to not see the minute differences between his lover and his… captor. The blurriness helps him pretend, which helps him survive.  
  
Conversation stalls when the comm-link in Ben’s ear suddenly crackles, and his face hardens.  
  
“What is it?” Logan asks.  
  
“Moorehead just ordered me to shoot you in the head.”  
  
Logan rolls his eyes, tired of these daily threats to his life to the point where they don’t matter anymore. “What’s the rush? I’ll be dead in a few hours anyway.”  
  
The door is pushed open suddenly and Ben instantly stands up taking a defensive stance. It takes a second for Logan to recognize the man walking into his cell.  
  
“Ames White…” Logan slowly rises to his wobbly feet. His strength has whittled down substantially in the past month; he’s lost a quarter of his body weight, and Ames White can see it too. “I’d expected you to come around sooner…”  
  
White gets right to the point. “I’m not going to waste your or my time, Cale. Just tell me where my son is.”  
  
“I-I don’t know.”  
  
“Don’t play games with me,” Logan takes a step back as Ames charges forward. “WHERE IS HE?!?”  
  
Before White can close his hand around Logan’s throat, which is what he was obviously intending to do – the Familiar is grabbed from behind and effortlessly flung to the other end of the room.  
  
Stunned, White looks up to find Ben standing in front of Logan, guarding him protectively.  
  
“How dare you!?!” He yells at the X5, “You fucking mutt! Have you forgotten you work for  _me_! Don’t you know who I am?!”  
  
Logan is amazed by how unfazed Ben looks. “I don’t care who you are. My orders are to safeguard the asset so you better keep your distance or else.”  
  
White picks himself up from the floor, glaring at Logan this time. “Looks like you’ve done it again, Cale. Haven’t lost your tranny-magnet mojo yet, I see…”  
  
Logan crosses his arms and tries not to feel slighted for basically being called a slut for transgenics.  
  
“493 – right?” White turns to Ben again. “This asset you’re so eagerly protecting, belongs to your genetic clone 494, did you know that? Before that, he was fucking your dearest sister, 452. Ever wondered how an Ordinary hero-wannabe gets to be at the center of the longest and bloodiest civil war this country has known since the 1800s, and  _survive_  it?”  
  
From his vantage point, Logan can only see Ben’s back and heaving shoulders. He has no idea how the X5 is reacting to White’s words. Rationally he knows he has only four hours to live but survival instinct is a stubborn thing, and he can’t help but worry he’s about to lose the only ally he has left.  
  
“I don’t see how any of that is relevant to my orders, Sir.”  
  
_Atta boy, Ben._  
  
“He’s playing you for a fool, you idiot! He’s taking advantage of you, it’s his standard MO! Don’t you get it?”  
  
When Ben doesn’t reply, White scoffs, “I don’t have time for this.” And he starts for the door. “You best be ready to protect this ‘asset’ of yours alone, freak, because all hell is about to break loose.”  
  
Soon as he’s gone, the sound of an explosion in the distance startles them. Ben turns to Logan with murder in his eyes. Thankfully, it is not directed at the human. He unlocks the chain from around Logan’s ankle and sets him free.  
  
“Time to go.”  
  
They’ve barely made a few feet out the door when they hear a set of footsteps running towards them. Ben pulls Logan into what seems to be a storage closet nearby, pulls out his gun and waits. A dozen X6s descend on the holding cell with their weapons drawn. But finding it empty, one of them shouts into his comm-link.  
  
“Ma’am, the prisoner is gone. And so is X5-493.”  
  
Moorehead’s agitated voice crackles over the walkie-talkie device. “Find them! I want that Ordinary dead. They’re not getting him back alive, no matter what!! And capture the traitor while you’re at it.”  
  
They spread out in all directions, armed with deadly weapons ranging from short knives to AK-47s. Logan gasps, only for Ben to put a hand on his mouth and silence him. But they could only hide and evade for so long. Before long, and despite Logan’s misgivings about the plan, Ben goes on the offensive. He engages the X6s one by one, taking them out to make way for Logan and himself to get out of the building, although Logan really isn’t sure what his plan is after that.  
  
“Come on, keep moving!”  
  
Ben pushes and prods him in harsh whispers and Logan complies to the best of his ability. He’s not in a position to walk very long distances though, and Ben is practically dragging or carrying him along. They pass a tall rectangular window at the staircase through which Logan sees gunfire and more explosions outside, in the forest and as far up as the mountains.  
  
“What’s happening out there?” he wonders out loud.  
  
Ben follows his line of sight. “Your friends are here for you.”  
  
Logan’s heart starts to race manically. He turns to look at Ben to see if he’s toying with him, but the transgenic looks dead serious.  
  
“Ben…” he whispers softly, but doesn’t know what to ask, too afraid to even try.  
  
Ben looks straight into his eyes. “I’ll get you to them,” and then a second later, he smirks, “so you can say goodbye to your loved ones before you die.”  
  
Logan smiles sadly, that’s all he really wants.  
  
But the battle has only just begun. It’ll be days before Logan finds out all the gory details of how his friends – Max, Alec, Joshua and Mole to name a few – broke through the impenetrable formation of Phoenix X7s surrounding the facility. Meanwhile inside the building, Logan concentrates on not keeling over and keeping up with Ben as he fights the endless string of X4s and X6s being sent by Moorehead to get them. And he’s doing it all by himself.  
  
He’s taking bullets, knife wounds, punches and kicks and nail scratches, but nothing manages to slow him down… that is until he runs out of ammo. They hide and take defensive positions several times, and those are the moments in which Logan is crouched up against Ben, or being held by him or something. Logan wonders in those moments if he’s simply hallucinating again because none of this makes sense… why is this transgenic not only helping Logan, but risking his life and committing treason to his own organization to do it?  
  
“Ben,” he whispers when he can’t take it anymore, pressed up against one door to an abandoned lab while the X5 is standing guard at the other one. “Why… what… what are you doing?”  
  
Ben looks at him, jaw clenching hard. “Playing the fool, I guess,” he whispers back, and that’s all the conversation they have the time for.  
  
Emergency alarms suddenly go off all around them, and they can hear footsteps running in the corridors, like everyone is evacuating the building. Ben sniffs the air a couple of times, “Looks like your girlfriend is back to finish the job.”  
  
After a while, Logan smells it too… the facility is burning, again.  
  
“Come on, this is our opening.” Ben grabs him by the arm once the hallway is clear and the two of them get out of the lab to make a dash for it.  
  
“Hold it right there!” A female voice screams behind them, and with their guns empty they have no choice but to freeze and turn around. It is Moorehead, bloody and injured from whatever fighting she caught herself in, holding a long range assault weapon trained at Logan’s forehead.  
  
“YOU,” she grinds out, blood dribbling from one side of her mouth, so much loathing in her voice it scares Logan.  
  
“All this time wasted, all because of you! You did this on purpose!!” And she fires, but Ben pushes Logan aside just in time so the bullet grazes the transgenic’s shoulder instead.  
  
The next instant, Logan sees nothing but a blur super-speeding across the hallway until it reaches Moorehead where, without hesitation, Ben grabs her from behind and snaps her neck in two.  
  
“Logan!”  
  
Someone is shaking him, asking him (not ordering him) to walk away, he doesn’t need to look at this dead body anymore…  
  
“We have to keep moving. Come on…”  
  
He’s numb. He should feel elated, avenged, relieved at least… but he feels absolutely nothing.  
  
“What did she mean?” Ben asks him later, once they’ve made it to the rear exit. Logan will find out later that Max and Alec were entering the burning building from the front at exactly the same time as he and Ben were leaving it from the back.  
  
Logan tries to shrug while concentrating hard on  _walking_ , it’s not as easy as people think. He should know – he was in a wheelchair long enough to appreciate the effort it takes to put one foot in front of the next against the pull of gravity and propel a six-foot tall frame forward.  
  
“Engel must have finally figured it out.”  
  
“Figured out what?”  
  
“That there  _is_  no antidote to the antidote.”  
  
“What?”  
  
Logan smiles, “It was just a figure of speech, a joke really, that Ralph must have overheard me or Alec make, and she latched on to it.”  
  
Ben’s eyes are wide with shock when he turns to look at Logan. They’re in the forest now, cautiously making their way through the X7 territory, although they’re yet to encounter any of those freaky black-eyed buggers so far.  
  
“But what about… what you said? About the Manticore database from four years ago?”  
  
“I figured all my conversations were being taped in that room so I… I fed the lie, fueled the rumor.”  
  
“To keep them running around in circles, chasing a false lead?”  
  
“Uh-huh.”  
  
Ben frowns deeply, still not sure what he’s hearing. “Let me get this straight, there’s never actually been a ‘dote’ at all?”  
  
Logan shakes his head.  
  
“Then… that means you won’t die?” There is so much hope in Ben’s voice it makes Logan smile.  
  
“I just happen to be that one-in-a-millionth person who’s rejecting the antidote because of my own freakishly defensive genetic makeup. Something in my DNA…”  
  
“So all this time, they were studying your blood when they actually should have been looking at what in your DNA makes you resilient? And you kept encouraging the ‘blood antigens’ theory to waste their time?”  
  
“Uh-huh.”  
  
“Sonofabitch,” Ben mutters.  
  
Logan looks for signs he might have angered the X5 somehow, signs he might turn on him now that he knows the truth. Panic sets in for a second, until Ben turns to look at him, a thoroughly amused smirk on his face.  
  
“Yeah, the money wasn’t that good anyway,” he quips, before continuing to go deeper into the woods, Logan following close behind.  
  
Feels like he’s been walking forever and maybe he has. Logan is exhausted and cold; his feet hurt and his vision is murkier than ever. If it weren’t for Ben prodding him along, he wouldn’t be upright at all.  
  
And then it begins… the Coming. The hour sneaks up on them quietly while he was so busy putting one foot in front of the next…  
  
The sky starts to light up, not with the sun, but with comet Kramer entering the earth’s atmosphere. Logan looks up and freezes in his tracks. Ben realizes a second later that Logan is no longer following him, and runs back to him.  
  
“Logan, come on! Come on!”  
  
Logan doesn’t want to run anymore. He looks at Ben and shakes his head. All he wants to do at this point, and he doesn’t give a fuck how wrong or right it is… is to pretend Ben is Alec, just so he doesn’t have to die alone. He wants to forget all the horrible things that have happened in the last month, and only remember the beautiful memories of the six months that came before.  
  
_Alec…_  
  
He starts to collapse onto his knees on the moist green forest floor but Ben catches him before he’s halfway there. “No, no, no… you’re not doing this again. We have to keep moving, come on!”  
  
Logan doesn’t understand why. What is the point? He tries to tell Ben to let him be, he’d just like to rest for a minute and look up at God’s fireworks in the sky – it looks so beautiful. He isn’t sure if any actual words leave his mouth or not, but it’s no matter. He finds himself taken by the gorgeous and incredibly long tail of the comet… even blurred, it’s so beautiful…  
  
Suddenly, Ben hauls him up and throws him over one shoulder then starts to run.  
  
“No, w-what… are you doing?”  
  
Logan looks up at the Manticore building still burning behind them. Maybe it’s a figment of his clearly shorted imagination, maybe not, but he sees Max at the staircase, standing by the same tall window he’d been at not so long ago… exactly how long ago was it?  
  
“Max… Max! Max!!”  
  
He starts to struggle, wondering why Ben is taking him so far away from the people he wishes to die in the arms of. He screams at Ben to let him go, screams for Max and Alec, making more noise than he should be if the strategy is to try and be stealthy.  
  
Suddenly he is hurled back on the ground, and Ben is hovering over him. “I told you before, baby, you are  _not going to die_.”  
  
With that he’s rolling Logan over until he tumbles into the river behind him, and Ben follows right after. The human gasps painfully because the water is cold if not as icy as the one he’d been dunked in few days ago. Strong hands grab him, set up upright in the water so his toes are barely touching the riverbed.  
  
“Take a deep breath, exhale, and take a deep breath again.” Ben commands and Logan robotically obeys.  
  
Then Ben pulls him down under the water and holds him there. A minute later when Logan starts to struggle for breath, Ben closes his mouth over the human’s, transferring his breath to Logan. Every minute or so, Ben goes up and gulps in more air to bring it back and feed it to the human. An Ordinary couldn’t possibly keep this up for more than a few seconds, but Ben is anything but ordinary.  
  
Logan on the other hand, is weaker than ever, and there is only so long he can keep with the program. He fights the darkness creeping around the edges of his consciousness with all his might; clearly it’s what Ben wants him to do. At some point though, he loses the battle and starts to drift away.  
  
His last thoughts are about his mom who loved him unconditionally and his dad who never could; about his ex-wife whom  _he_  loved unconditionally but she never could; about Max who he’d hoped to ask to be his ‘best man’ when he asked Alec to marry him; and about Alec – who went from annoying colleague to trusted friend… to become the one true love of his too-short life.  
  
He smiles, and then he thinks of the other X5 with the face of his one true love – Ben. He’ll never forgive Ben for the things he did. But Logan will always be thankful to him for trying… trying to be different from what the world expected him to be, trying to right some of the wrongs of his past, trying to save a lost cause like him…  
  
“Logan!”  
  
“No, no, no… don’t give up yet…”  
  
“Breathe… just breathe. Come on!”  
  
“Stay with me, baby… please…”  
  
_Forgive me… if you can…  
  
Oh my God, Logan! …  
  
… He’s here …  
  
… Someone get me a blanket … _  
  
“Shh, you’re okay Lo’… you’re okay…”  
  
“Logan? Open your eyes, sweetheart.”  
  
Logan comes to with a quiet gasp. Or at least he tries to.  
  
“Hey, take it easy, you’re okay…”  
  
He has trouble opening his eyes but finally manages it, only to quickly close them again against the broad daylight streaming through his full-length windows. He frowns; his holding cell does not have any such windows, definitely not this much sunlight. His penthouse on the other hand…  
  
He blinks his eyes open again and finds himself on his back in a soft, clean bed. Three familiar, smiling faces hover over him at an uncomfortably close distance.  
  
“Welcome back, sweetheart,” Max whispers stroking the hair out of his face and dripping hot tears on Logan’s neck, then using her own sweater sleeve to wipe them away. Glad they don’t have the virus between them anymore or surviving such a long ordeal only to be put down by more genetic bio-warfare would just… suck.  
  
Joshua’s face is bobbing up and down as do his long golden curls, decidedly happy to see him. “Logan back, Logan back! Back in the fold… never letting out of sight again!”  
  
“What?”  
  
Max punches Joshua lightly in the arm. “He’s kidding! He doesn’t mean  _never_ …”  
  
Logan can’t help but smile. The big lug would slobber all over Logan if he could, if the third person in the room wasn’t resolutely holding him back. His smile fades just a little as his eyes land on Alec’s face.  
  
The blurriness starts to bother him, and as if reading his mind, Max reaches across him to the bedside table for his glasses. She doesn’t hand them to him, instead gently places them on the bridge of his nose herself. Logan blinks a couple of times as his vision sharpens and becomes clearer than it has been all month long. Max and Joshua are still talking at him but he tunes them out. He looks up instead to the only person who hasn’t said a word yet.  
  
_Alec_ … this really is his boyfriend, his partner, the love of his life…  
  
Logan turns away from him, all of them, eyes brimming with tears.  
  
“I’m still tired, guys. Can you please… give me a minute?”  
  
*****  
***  
*****  
  
_“That really sucked,” Alec recalls, sighing heavily and rubbing his eyebrows.  
  
“You kicked us all out and didn’t even let _ me _stay. But, I understand now, why.”  
  
Logan puts his coffee mug aside; it got stale and cold two hours ago anyway. He knows he’ll have to talk to Max and Joshua soon too, especially Joshua. He might be older to them all in years, but his inherent innocence, the canine in his cocktail and less exposure to the real world makes him a lot more childlike. He must be taking Logan’s odd behavior personally.  
  
“Don’t worry about Big Fella,” Alec says, reading his partner’s mind accurately. He sits on the coffee table in front of Logan, maintaining a reasonable distance.  
  
“He whimpered a lot the first few days, after that he growled a lot. But he worked all his issues out once we caught up with Barton.”  
  
Logan frowns. “Did Joshua…”  
  
“Uh-huh. It was probably self-defense though – you can’t come at Joshua with a machete and live to talk about it.”  
  
Alec smirks, and Logan can’t claim to feel any sympathy for his torturer either.  
  
So Barton and Ralph are dead, as is Moorehead. Alec goes on to speculate about how the Phoenix probably still exists, at large, somewhere. The comet came and went, taking a hundred odd lives across the planet. That number is way too high as far as Logan is concerned but not nearly the extinction level event the Familiars had hoped for. To the best of their knowledge, the Conclave seems to have gone underground as well, if not completely disintegrated.  
  
“In short, we’re safe, for now. Hell, we might be safer than we’ve been in four years,” Alec finishes quietly, and Logan nods. Of course his definition of 'safe' has taken quite a hit these past few weeks, so Logan isn’t really sure what that means just yet. He used to feel safe in this penthouse; he wasn’t supposed to be safe with Ben…  
  
“So, where did you find me again?”  
  
“Right by the river where he…” Alec exhales heavily, “where he left you.”  
  
“…”  
  
“He must have kept you alive underwater for twenty minutes at least.”  
  
Logan nods subtly, though his memories of those crucial few minutes are nothing more than a thick cloud of fog stuck inside his head. He turns to his boyfriend and sees the sadness, the rage, the guilt and the helplessness he must have felt all month long, splattered all at once across his face.  
  
“You kept me alive for twenty-five days, Alec.”  
  
Alec turns to him then, eyes growing wide.  
  
“If it weren’t for you, I might have offed myself on day one. But I didn’t want to disappoint you. I wanted… I hoped… to see you again and that – that kept m-me going…”  
  
The tears come out of nowhere, not in Logan’s eyes but in Alec’s.  
  
The younger man rushes to Logan’s side, kneeling beside the couch with his arms outstretched, begging Logan to break this glass wall that’d risen between them. And Logan does. He lets himself fall forward and into Alec’s embrace, shaking with the force of his own long-overdue tears.  
  
It’s still raining, feels like it’s been raining for years. But nothing can stop the sun to rise, and for daylight to chase the darkness away. Hopefully this time, Logan will allow it to dispel his own shadows of doubt and distrust.  
  
Hopefully, come morning, he will remember, and _ believe _, that in their ongoing saga of darkness and strife, the chapter of the Phoenix is closed and behind them, for now.  
  
Hopefully he will believe that Alec is _ Alec _, who doesn’t deserve any less than the love and trust he has for Logan.  
  
And hopefully, he will no longer feel this irrational, _ shameful _, conflicting mix of relief and disappointment every time he looks at him and realizes that Alec_ is _Alec; and Ben is gone forever._  
  
*****  
***  
***  
  
Epilogue  
[Twelve days after impact…] **  
  
A tall figure dressed in black leather from neck to toe stands atop the skyscraper opposite Logan’s building.  
  
He digs his hands in his jacket pockets, not caring a bit for the rain that’s slapping down against him, hard, clearly displeased with his presence here, in this place.  
  
With his genetically engineered eyesight he zones in on the penthouse. He watches the two figures crouching on the floor, wrapped around each other gracefully despite their six-foot plus heights and sharp angles. The green-tinged veins in his neck pulsate as he watches the two men rock gently, back and forth. It’s hard to tell who’s consoling who in their little huddle; maybe they’re both consoling each other.  
  
He’s been watching them for several days now, watching the distance grow, then shrink, then widen again. This is the first time they seem to have finally succeeded in putting the past where it belongs, behind them.  
  
Part of him wants to unsheathe his weapon and shoot a bullet through the transgenic’s head right now. But another, bigger,  _newer_ , part of him feels an odd sense of relief… and absolution, something he doesn’t quite understand himself. Like a weight he didn’t realize he’s been carrying around for weeks has suddenly lifted off his shoulders.  
  
After a while, he watches his clone carefully scoop the human into his arms like he was made of fine-cut glass, and carry him to the other end of the penthouse into the master bedroom.  
  
They’re not going to be intimate for many more weeks to come, and he feels a muted and perverse satisfaction at the thought. It’s followed up instantly with bitterness, because the intimacy they share tonight is a thousand times stronger and more beautiful than he’s ever known himself.  
  
No one will ever look at him again the way Logan did. Of course, the bitch of it is, it wasn’t really  _him_  Logan  _saw_  when he looked at him anyway.  
  
X5 493, Ben, inhales deeply and continues to ignore the cold rain insisting he be on his way. He resolves to watch over Logan, now and forever, but do it in a way so their paths never cross again. He wishes his memories of Logan Cale weren’t so marred with guilt, but it is what it is. No matter what he did  _after_ , or what he does now… it can never make up for the horrors he subjected that man to for several days. But if memories are all he has left of this man, he will cherish them forever.  
  
No matter how grotesque and horrifying they might be.  
  


***** THE END *****


End file.
